1,315 research outputs found
Data Streams from the Low Frequency Instrument On-Board the Planck Satellite: Statistical Analysis and Compression Efficiency
The expected data rate produced by the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) planned
to fly on the ESA Planck mission in 2007, is over a factor 8 larger than the
bandwidth allowed by the spacecraft transmission system to download the LFI
data. We discuss the application of lossless compression to Planck/LFI data
streams in order to reduce the overall data flow. We perform both theoretical
analysis and experimental tests using realistically simulated data streams in
order to fix the statistical properties of the signal and the maximal
compression rate allowed by several lossless compression algorithms. We studied
the influence of signal composition and of acquisition parameters on the
compression rate Cr and develop a semiempirical formalism to account for it.
The best performing compressor tested up to now is the arithmetic compression
of order 1, designed for optimizing the compression of white noise like
signals, which allows an overall compression rate = 2.65 +/- 0.02. We find
that such result is not improved by other lossless compressors, being the
signal almost white noise dominated. Lossless compression algorithms alone will
not solve the bandwidth problem but needs to be combined with other techniques.Comment: May 3, 2000 release, 61 pages, 6 figures coded as eps, 9 tables (4
included as eps), LaTeX 2.09 + assms4.sty, style file included, submitted for
the pubblication on PASP May 3, 200
An evolutionary model for GHz Peaked Spectrum Sources. Predictions for high frequency surveys
We have explored, in the general framework of the ``young source'' scenario,
evolutionary models for GHz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) galaxies and quasars which
reproduce the observed counts, redshift and peak frequency distributions of
currently available samples. Substantially different cosmological evolution
properties are found for the two populations: the quasar luminosity function
must evolve strongly up to , while the data on galaxies may be
consistent with no evolution. The models show that GPS sources (mostly quasars)
may comprise quite a significant fraction of bright (Jy) radio sources
at GHz if the intrinsic distribution of peak frequencies extends
up to GHz. In any case, however, their fraction decreases rapidly
with decreasing flux and their contribution to small scale fluctuations in the
frequency range covered by the forthcoming space missions MAP and Planck
Surveyor is expected to be minor.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, A&A accepte
CMB signal in WMAP 3yr data with FastICA
We present an application of the fast Independent Component Analysis
(FastICA) to the WMAP 3yr data with the goal of extracting the CMB signal. We
evaluate the confidence of our results by means of Monte Carlo simulations
including CMB, foreground contaminations and instrumental noise specific of
each WMAP frequency band. We perform a complete analysis involving all or a
subset of the WMAP channels in order to select the optimal combination for CMB
extraction, using the frequency scaling of the reconstructed component as a
figure of merit. We found that the combination KQVW provides the best CMB
frequency scaling, indicating that the low frequency foreground contamination
in Q, V and W bands is better traced by the emission in the K band. The CMB
angular power spectrum is recovered up to the degree scale, it is consistent
within errors for all WMAP channel combination considered, and in close
agreement with the WMAP 3yr results. We perform a statistical analysis of the
recovered CMB pattern, and confirm the sky asymmetry reported in several
previous works with independent techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRA
New insights into foreground analysis of the WMAP five-year data using FASTICA
In this paper, we present a foreground analysis of the WMAP 5-year data using
the FASTICA algorithm, improving on the treatment of the WMAP 3-year data in
Bottino et al 2008. We revisit the nature of the free-free spectrum with the
emphasis on attempting to confirm or otherwise the spectral feature claimed in
Dobbler et al 2008b and explained in terms of spinning dust emission in the
warm ionised medium. With the application of different Galactic cuts, the index
is always flatter than the canonical value of 2.14 except for the Kp0 mask
which is steeper. Irrespective of this, we can not confirm the presence of any
feature in the free-free spectrum. We experiment with a more extensive approach
to the cleaning of the data, introduced in connection with the iterative
application of FASTICA. We confirm the presence of a residual foreground whose
spatial distribution is concentrated along the Galactic plane, with pronounced
emission near the Galactic center. This is consistent with the WMAP haze
detected in Finkbeiner 2004. Finally, we attempted to perform the same analysis
on full-sky maps. The code returns good results even for those regions where
the cross-talk among the components is high. However, slightly better results
in terms of the possibility of reconstructing a full-sky CMB map, are achieved
with a simultaneous analysis of both the five WMAP maps and foreground
templates. Nonetheless, some residuals are still present and detected in terms
of an excess in the CMB power spectrum, on small angular scales. Therefore, a
minimal mask for the brightest regions of the plane is necessary, and has been
defined.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 25 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables.
Version with full resolution figures available at:
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~bottino/downloads/bottino_etal.pd
Full Sky Study of Diffuse Galactic Emission at Decimeter Wavelengths
A detailed knowledge of the Galactic radio continuum is of high interest for
studies of the dynamics and structure of the Galaxy as well as for the problem
of foreground removal in Cosmic Microwave Background measurements. In this work
we present a full-sky study of the diffuse Galactic emission at frequencies of
few GHz, where synchrotron radiation is by far the dominant component. We
perform a detailed combined analysis of the extended surveys at 408, 1420 and
2326 MHz (by Haslam et al. 1982, Reich 1982, Reich & Reich, 1986 and Jonas et
al. 1998, respectively). Using the technique applied by Schlegel et al. (1998)
to the IRAS data, we produce destriped versions of the three maps. This allows
us to construct a nearly-full-sky map of the spectral index and of the
normalization factor with sub-degree angular resolution. The resulting
distribution of the spectral indices has an average of beta = 2.695 and
dispersion sigma_{beta} = 0.120. This is representative for the Galactic
diffuse synchrotron emission, with only minor effects from free-free emission
and point sources.Comment: 10 pages, 16 jpeg figures, accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics,
Comments and figure adde
Anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background
We review the present status of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy
observations and discuss the main related astrophysical issues, instrumental
effects and data analysis techniques. We summarise the balloon-borne and
ground-based experiments that, after COBE-DMR, yielded detection or significant
upper limits to CMB fluctuations. A comparison of subsets of combined data
indicates that the acoustic features observed today in the angular power
spectrum are not dominated by undetected systematics. Pushing the accuracy of
CMB anisotropy measurements to their ultimate limits represents one of the best
opportunities for cosmology to develop into a precision science in the next
decade. We discuss the forthcoming sub-orbital and space programs, as well as
future prospects of CMB observations.Comment: 83 pages, 16 figures. Revised version, accepted by "La Rivista del
Nuovo Cimento
Trade-off between angular resolution and straylight contamination in CMB anisotropy experiments. II. Straylight evaluation
Satellite CMB anisotropy missions and new generation of balloon-borne and
ground experiments, make use of complex multi-frequency instruments at the
focus of a meter class telescope. Between 70 GHz and 300 GHz, where foreground
contamination is minimum, it is extremely important to reach the best trade-off
between the improvement of the angular resolution and the minimization of the
straylight contamination mainly due to the Galactic emission. We focus here, as
a working case, on the 30 and 100 GHz channels of the Planck Low Frequency
Instrument (LFI). We evaluate the GSC introduced by the most relevant Galactic
foreground components for a reference set of optical configurations. We show
that it is possible to improve the angular resolution of 5-7% by keeping the
overall GSC below the level of few microKelvin. A comparison between the level
of straylight introduced by the different Galactic components for different
beam regions is presented. Simple approximate relations giving the rms and
peak-to-peak levels of the GSC are provided. We compare the results obtained at
100 GHz with those at 30 GHz, where GSC is more critical. Finally, we compare
the results based on Galactic foreground templates derived from radio and IR
surveys with those based on WMAP maps including CMB and extragalactic source
fluctuations.Comment: Submitted to A&A. Quality of the figures was degraded for
size-related reason
On the loss of telemetry data in full-sky surveys from space
In this paper we discuss the issue of loosing telemetry (TM) data due to
different reasons (e.g. spacecraft-ground transmissions) while performing a
full-sky survey with space-borne instrumentation. This is a particularly
important issue considering the current and future space missions (like Planck
from ESA and WMAP from NASA) operating from an orbit far from Earth with short
periods of visibility from ground stations. We consider, as a working case, the
Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) on-board the Planck satellite albeit the
approach developed here can be easily applied to any kind of experiment that
makes use of an observing (scanning) strategy which assumes repeated pointings
of the same region of the sky on different time scales. The issue is addressed
by means of a Monte Carlo approach. Our analysis clearly shows that, under
quite general conditions, it is better to cover the sky more times with a lower
fraction of TM retained than less times with a higher guaranteed TM fraction.
In the case of Planck, an extension of mission time to allow a third sky
coverage with 95% of the total TM guaranteed provides a significant reduction
of the probability to loose scientific information with respect to an increase
of the total guaranteed TM to 98% with the two nominal sky coverages.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication on New Astronom
Criterios e indicadores de impacto para el programa de crédito individual de INDAP
Published by AsociaciĂÂłn de Economistas Agrarios de Chileevaluation criteria, impact evaluation, impact indicators, loan program., Agricultural and Food Policy,
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