4,864 research outputs found
Comparison of fringe-tracking algorithms for single-mode near-infrared long-baseline interferometers
To enable optical long baseline interferometry toward faint objects, long
integrations are necessary despite atmospheric turbulence. Fringe trackers are
needed to stabilize the fringes and thus increase the fringe visibility and
phase signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), with efficient controllers robust to
instrumental vibrations, and to subsequent path fluctuations and flux
drop-outs.
We report on simulations, analysis and comparison of the performances of a
classical integrator controller and of a Kalman controller, both optimized to
track fringes under realistic observing conditions for different source
magnitudes, disturbance conditions, and sampling frequencies. The key
parameters of our simulations (instrument photometric performance, detection
noise, turbulence and vibrations statistics) are based on typical observing
conditions at the Very Large Telescope observatory and on the design of the
GRAVITY instrument, a 4-telescope single-mode long baseline interferometer in
the near-infrared, next in line to be installed at VLT Interferometer.
We find that both controller performances follow a two-regime law with the
star magnitude, a constant disturbance limited regime, and a diverging detector
and photon noise limited regime. Moreover, we find that the Kalman controller
is optimal in the high and medium SNR regime due to its predictive commands
based on an accurate disturbance model. In the low SNR regime, the model is not
accurate enough to be more robust than an integrator controller. Identifying
the disturbances from high SNR measurements improves the Kalman performances in
case of strong optical path difference disturbances.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 17 pages 15 figure
Filling in CMB map missing data using constrained Gaussian realizations
For analyzing maps of the cosmic microwave background sky, it is necessary to
mask out the region around the galactic equator where the parasitic foreground
emission is strongest as well as the brightest compact sources. Since many of
the analyses of the data, particularly those searching for non-Gaussianity of a
primordial origin, are most straightforwardly carried out on full-sky maps, it
is of great interest to develop efficient algorithms for filling in the missing
information in a plausible way. We explore practical algorithms for filling in
based on constrained Gaussian realizations. Although carrying out such
realizations is in principle straightforward, for finely pixelized maps as will
be required for the Planck analysis a direct brute force method is not
numerically tractable. We present some concrete solutions to this problem, both
on a spatially flat sky with periodic boundary conditions and on the pixelized
sphere. One approach is to solve the linear system with an appropriately
preconditioned conjugate gradient method. While this approach was successfully
implemented on a rectangular domain with periodic boundary conditions and
worked even for very wide masked regions, we found that the method failed on
the pixelized sphere for reasons that we explain here. We present an approach
that works for full-sky pixelized maps on the sphere involving a kernel-based
multi-resolution Laplace solver followed by a series of conjugate gradient
corrections near the boundary of the mask.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, minor changes, a few missing references adde
Instrumental and Analytic Methods for Bolometric Polarimetry
We discuss instrumental and analytic methods that have been developed for the
first generation of bolometric cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeters.
The design, characterization, and analysis of data obtained using Polarization
Sensitive Bolometers (PSBs) are described in detail. This is followed by a
brief study of the effect of various polarization modulation techniques on the
recovery of sky polarization from scanning polarimeter data. Having been
successfully implemented on the sub-orbital Boomerang experiment, PSBs are
currently operational in two terrestrial CMB polarization experiments (QUaD and
the Robinson Telescope). We investigate two approaches to the analysis of data
from these experiments, using realistic simulations of time ordered data to
illustrate the impact of instrumental effects on the fidelity of the recovered
polarization signal. We find that the analysis of difference time streams takes
full advantage of the high degree of common mode rejection afforded by the PSB
design. In addition to the observational efforts currently underway, this
discussion is directly applicable to the PSBs that constitute the polarized
capability of the Planck HFI instrument.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures. for submission to A&
Multi-Detector Multi-Component spectral matching and applications for CMB data analysis
We present a new method for analyzing multi--detector maps containing
contributions from several components. Our method, based on matching the data
to a model in the spectral domain, permits to estimate jointly the spatial
power spectra of the components and of the noise, as well as the mixing
coefficients. It is of particular relevance for the analysis of
millimeter--wave maps containing a contribution from CMB anisotropies.Comment: 15 pages, 7 Postscript figures, submitted to MNRA
Compressive and Noncompressive Power Spectral Density Estimation from Periodic Nonuniform Samples
This paper presents a novel power spectral density estimation technique for
band-limited, wide-sense stationary signals from sub-Nyquist sampled data. The
technique employs multi-coset sampling and incorporates the advantages of
compressed sensing (CS) when the power spectrum is sparse, but applies to
sparse and nonsparse power spectra alike. The estimates are consistent
piecewise constant approximations whose resolutions (width of the piecewise
constant segments) are controlled by the periodicity of the multi-coset
sampling. We show that compressive estimates exhibit better tradeoffs among the
estimator's resolution, system complexity, and average sampling rate compared
to their noncompressive counterparts. For suitable sampling patterns,
noncompressive estimates are obtained as least squares solutions. Because of
the non-negativity of power spectra, compressive estimates can be computed by
seeking non-negative least squares solutions (provided appropriate sampling
patterns exist) instead of using standard CS recovery algorithms. This
flexibility suggests a reduction in computational overhead for systems
estimating both sparse and nonsparse power spectra because one algorithm can be
used to compute both compressive and noncompressive estimates.Comment: 26 pages, single spaced, 9 figure
Measuring galaxy cluster masses with CMB lensing using a Maximum Likelihood estimator: Statistical and systematic error budgets for future experiments
We develop a Maximum Likelihood estimator (MLE) to measure the masses of
galaxy clusters through the impact of gravitational lensing on the temperature
and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We show
that, at low noise levels in temperature, this optimal estimator outperforms
the standard quadratic estimator by a factor of two. For polarization, we show
that the Stokes Q/U maps can be used instead of the traditional E- and B-mode
maps without losing information. We test and quantify the bias in the recovered
lensing mass for a comprehensive list of potential systematic errors. Using
realistic simulations, we examine the cluster mass uncertainties from
CMB-cluster lensing as a function of an experiment's beam size and noise level.
We predict the cluster mass uncertainties will be 3 - 6% for SPT-3G, AdvACT,
and Simons Array experiments with 10,000 clusters and less than 1% for the
CMB-S4 experiment with a sample containing 100,000 clusters. The mass
constraints from CMB polarization are very sensitive to the experimental beam
size and map noise level: for a factor of three reduction in either the beam
size or noise level, the lensing signal-to-noise improves by roughly a factor
of two.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures: figs 2, 3 updated, references added: accepted
for publication in JCA
CMB Aberration and Doppler Effects as a Source of Hemispherical Asymmetries
Our peculiar motion with respect to the CMB rest frame represents a preferred
direction in the observed CMB sky since it induces an apparent deflection of
the observed CMB photons (aberration) and a shift in their frequency (Doppler).
Both effects distort the multipoles 's at all 's. Such
effects are real as it has been recently measured for the first time by Planck
according to what was forecast in some recent papers. However, the common lore
when estimating a power spectrum from CMB is to consider that Doppler affects
only the multipole, neglecting any other corrections. In this work we
use simulations of the CMB sky in a boosted frame with a peculiar velocity
in order to assess the impact of such
effect on power spectrum estimations in different regions of the sky. We show
that the boost induces a north-south asymmetry in the power spectrum which is
highly significant and non-negligible, of about (0.58 0.10)% for half-sky
cuts when going up to = 2500. We suggest that these effects are relevant
and may account for some of the north-south asymmetries seen in the Planck
data, being especially important at small scales. Finally we analyze the
particular case of the ACT experiment, which observed only a small fraction of
the sky and show that it suffers a bias of about 1% on the power spectrum and
of similar size on some cosmological parameters: for example the position of
the peaks shifts by 0.5% and the overall amplitude of the spectrum is about
0.4% lower than a full-sky case.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
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