Exploring the consequences of chromatic data excision in 21-cm Epoch of Reionization power spectrum observations

We explore how chromatic RFI flags affect 21-cm power spectrum measurements. We particularly study flags that are coarser than the analysis resolution. We find that such RFI flags produce excess power in the EoR window in much the same way as residual RFI. We use simulations to explain this as a result of chromatic disruptions in the interferometric sampling function of the array. We also show that without modifying current flagging strategies or implementing extremely accurate foreground subtraction, 21-cm EoR experiments will fail to make a significant detection.