5,354 research outputs found
Beam mismatch effects in Cosmic Microwave Background polarization measurements
Measurement of cosmic microwave background polarization is today a major goal
of observational cosmology. The level of the signal to measure, however, makes
it very sensitive to various systematic effects. In the case of Planck, which
measures polarization by combining data from various detectors, the beam
asymmetry can induce a temperature leakage or a polarization mode mixing. In
this paper, we investigate this effect using realistic simulated beams and
propose a first-order method to correct the polarization power spectra for the
induced systematic effect.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic
Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Sky Maps, Systematic Errors, and Basic Results
(Abridged) New full sky temperature and polarization maps based on seven
years of data from WMAP are presented. The new results are consistent with
previous results, but have improved due to reduced noise from the additional
integration time, improved knowledge of the instrument performance, and
improved data analysis procedures. The improvements are described in detail.
The seven year data set is well fit by a minimal six-parameter flat Lambda-CDM
model. The parameters for this model, using the WMAP data in conjunction with
baryon acoustic oscillation data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and priors
on H_0 from Hubble Space Telescope observations, are: Omega_bh^2 = 0.02260
+-0.00053, Omega_ch^2 = 0.1123 +-0.0035, Omega_Lambda = 0.728 +0.015 -0.016,
n_s = 0.963 +-0.012, tau = 0.087 +-0.014 and sigma_8 = 0.809 +-0.024 (68 % CL
uncertainties). The temperature power spectrum signal-to-noise ratio per
multipole is greater that unity for multipoles < 919, allowing a robust
measurement of the third acoustic peak. This measurement results in improved
constraints on the matter density, Omega_mh^2 = 0.1334 +0.0056 -0.0055, and the
epoch of matter- radiation equality, z_eq = 3196 +134 -133, using WMAP data
alone. The new WMAP data, when combined with smaller angular scale microwave
background anisotropy data, results in a 3 sigma detection of the abundance of
primordial Helium, Y_He = 0.326 +-0.075.The power-law index of the primordial
power spectrum is now determined to be n_s = 0.963 +-0.012, excluding the
Harrison-Zel'dovich-Peebles spectrum by >3 sigma. These new WMAP measurements
provide important tests of Big Bang cosmology.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Astrophysical Journal Supplement
Serie
Impact of modulation on CMB B-mode polarization experiments
We investigate the impact of both slow and fast polarization modulation
strategies on the science return of upcoming ground-based experiments aimed at
measuring the B-mode polarization of the CMB. Using simulations of the Clover
experiment, we compare the ability of modulated and un-modulated observations
to recover the signature of gravitational waves in the polarized CMB sky in the
presence of a number of anticipated systematic effects. The general
expectations that fast modulation is helpful in mitigating low-frequency
detector noise, and that the additional redundancy in the projection of the
instrument's polarization sensitivity directions onto the sky when modulating
reduces the impact of instrumental polarization, are borne out by our
simulations. Neither low-frequency polarized atmospheric fluctuations nor
systematic errors in the polarization sensitivity directions are mitigated by
modulation. Additionally, we find no significant reduction in the effect of
pointing errors by modulation. For a Clover-like experiment, pointing jitter
should be negligible but any systematic mis-calibration of the polarization
coordinate reference system results in significant E-B mixing on all angular
scales and will require careful control. We also stress the importance of
combining data from multiple detectors in order to remove the effects of
common-mode systematics (such as 1/f atmospheric noise) on the measured
polarization signal. Finally we compare the performance of our simulated
experiment with the predicted performance from a Fisher analysis. We find good
agreement between the Fisher predictions and the simulations except for the
very largest scales where the power spectrum estimator we have used introduces
additional variance to the B-mode signal recovered from our simulations.Comment: Replaced with version accepted by MNRAS. Analysis of half-wave plate
systematic (differential transmittance) adde
Results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) mapped the distribution of
temperature and polarization over the entire sky in five microwave frequency
bands. These full-sky maps were used to obtain measurements of temperature and
polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background with the
unprecedented accuracy and precision. The analysis of two-point correlation
functions of temperature and polarization data gives determinations of the
fundamental cosmological parameters such as the age and composition of the
universe, as well as the key parameters describing the physics of inflation,
which is further constrained by three-point correlation functions. WMAP
observations alone reduced the flat cold dark matter (CDM)
cosmological model (six) parameter volume by a factor of >68,000 compared with
pre-WMAP measurements. The WMAP observations (sometimes in combination with
other astrophysical probes) convincingly show the existence of non-baryonic
dark matter, the cosmic neutrino background, flatness of spatial geometry of
the universe, a deviation from a scale-invariant spectrum of initial scalar
fluctuations, and that the current universe is undergoing an accelerated
expansion. The WMAP observations provide the strongest ever support for
inflation; namely, the structures we see in the universe originate from quantum
fluctuations generated during inflation.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, invited review for Special Section "CMB
Cosmology" of Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP). (v2)
New ns-r figure added. Accepted for publicatio
Rotation Measure Synthesis of Galactic Polarized Emission with the DRAO 26-m Telescope
Radio polarimetry at decimetre wavelengths is the principal source of
information on the Galactic magnetic field. The diffuse polarized emission is
strongly influenced by Faraday rotation in the magneto-ionic medium and
rotation measure is the prime quantity of interest, implying that all Stokes
parameters must be measured over wide frequency bands with many frequency
channels. The DRAO 26-m Telescope has been equipped with a wideband feed, a
polarization transducer to deliver both hands of circular polarization, and a
receiver, all operating from 1277 to 1762 MHz. Half-power beamwidth is between
40 and 30 arcminutes. A digital FPGA spectrometer, based on commercially
available components, produces all Stokes parameters in 2048 frequency channels
over a 485-MHz bandwidth. Signals are digitized to 8 bits and a Fast Fourier
Transform is applied to each data stream. Stokes parameters are then generated
in each frequency channel. This instrument is in use at DRAO for a Northern sky
polarization survey. Observations consist of scans up and down the Meridian at
a drive rate of 0.9 degree per minute to give complete coverage of the sky
between declinations -30 degree and 90 degree. This paper presents a complete
description of the receiver and data acquisition system. Only a small fraction
of the frequency band of operation is allocated for radio astronomy, and about
20 percent of the data are lost to interference. The first 8 percent of data
from the survey are used for a proof-of-concept study, which has led to the
first application of Rotation Measure Synthesis to the diffuse Galactic
emission obtained with a single-antenna telescope. We find rotation measure
values for the diffuse emission as high as approximately 100 rad per square
metre, much higher than recorded in earlier work.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa
Measurements of Sub-degree B-mode Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background from 100 Square Degrees of SPTpol Data
We present a measurement of the -mode polarization power spectrum (the
spectrum) from 100 of sky observed with SPTpol, a
polarization-sensitive receiver currently installed on the South Pole
Telescope. The observations used in this work were taken during 2012 and early
2013 and include data in spectral bands centered at 95 and 150 GHz. We report
the spectrum in five bins in multipole space, spanning the range , and for three spectral combinations: 95 GHz 95 GHz, 95
GHz 150 GHz, and 150 GHz 150 GHz. We subtract small ( in units of statistical uncertainty) biases from these spectra and
account for the uncertainty in those biases. The resulting power spectra are
inconsistent with zero power but consistent with predictions for the
spectrum arising from the gravitational lensing of -mode polarization. If we
assume no other source of power besides lensed modes, we determine a
preference for lensed modes of . After marginalizing over
tensor power and foregrounds, namely polarized emission from galactic dust and
extragalactic sources, this significance is . Fitting for a single
parameter, , that multiplies the predicted lensed -mode
spectrum, and marginalizing over tensor power and foregrounds, we find
, indicating that our measured spectra are
consistent with the signal expected from gravitational lensing. The data
presented here provide the best measurement to date of the -mode power
spectrum on these angular scales.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure
Planck pre-launch status: Expected LFI polarisation capability
We present a system-level description of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) considered as a differencing polarimeter, and evaluate its expected performance. The LFI is one of the two instruments on board the ESA Planck mission to study the cosmic microwave background. It consists of a set of 22 radiometers sensitive to linear polarisation, arranged in orthogonally-oriented pairs connected to 11 feed horns operating at 30, 44 and 70 GHz. In our analysis, the generic Jones and Mueller-matrix formulations for polarimetry are adapted to the special case of the LFI. Laboratory measurements of flight components are combined with optical simulations of the telescope to investigate the values and uncertainties in the system parameters affecting polarisation response. Methods of correcting residual systematic errors are also briefly discussed. The LFI has beam-integrated polarisation efficiency >99% for all detectors, with uncertainties below 0.1%. Indirect assessment of polarisation position angles suggests that uncertainties are generally less than 0°.5, and this will be checked in flight using observations of the Crab nebula. Leakage of total intensity into the polarisation signal is generally well below the thermal noise level except for bright Galactic emission, where the dominant effect is likely to be spectral-dependent terms due to bandpass mismatch between the two detectors behind each feed, contributing typically 1–3% leakage of foreground total intensity. Comparable leakage from compact features occurs due to beam mismatch, but this averages to < 5 × 10^(-4) for large-scale emission. An inevitable feature of the LFI design is that the two components of the linear polarisation are recovered from elliptical beams which differ substantially in orientation. This distorts the recovered polarisation and its angular power spectrum, and several methods are being developed to correct the effect, both in the power spectrum and in the sky maps. The LFI will return a high-quality measurement of the CMB polarisation, limited mainly by thermal noise. To meet our aspiration of measuring polarisation at the 1% level, further analysis of flight and ground data is required. We are still researching the most effective techniques for correcting subtle artefacts in polarisation; in particular the correction of bandpass mismatch effects is a formidable challenge, as it requires multi-band analysis to estimate the spectral indices that control the leakage
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