Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) studies underpin our understanding of the universe and its history. Until recently, we have relied principally on CMB temperature observations to build our standard cosmological model, but today the field forges ahead into its next frontier - CMB polarization anistropy. Polarization measurements will furnish fresh and independent information on the primordial density perturbations and cosmological parameters, and they offer the exciting potential to detect primordial gravity waves, constrain dark energy and measure the neutrino mass scale. I review the science and long-term goals of CMB polarization measurements and discuss current results and future observational projects. A vigorous program of ground-based, suborbital and space-based (e.g., WMAP and Planck [2008]) experiments is guiding us towards a future space mission dedicated to high precision polarization measurements

Cosmological Constraints from 2D SZ Catalogs: Number Counts and the Angular Correlation Function

We discuss cosmological constraints from two-dimensional catalogs of galaxy clusters observed by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. Three kinds of SZ survey are considered: the almost all-sky Planck survey and two deeper ground-based surveys, one with 10% sky coverage, the other one with a coverage of 250 square degrees

Cosmic microwave background anisotropy power spectrum statistics for high precision cosmology

As the era of high precision cosmology approaches, the empirically determined power spectrum of the microwave background anisotropy, $C_l$, will provide a crucial test for cosmological theories. We present a unified semi-analytic framework for the study of the statistical properties of the $C_l$ coefficients computed from the results of balloon, ground based, and satellite experiments. An illustrative application shows that commonly used approximations {\it bias} the estimation of the baryon parameter $\Omega_b$ at the 1% level even for a satellite capturing as much as $\sim 70$% of the sky.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Also available at http://www.tac.dk/~wandelt/downloads.htm

Signatures of Relativistic Neutrinos in CMB Anisotropy and Matter Clustering

We present a detailed analytical study of ultra-relativistic neutrinos in cosmological perturbation theory and of the observable signatures of inhomogeneities in the cosmic neutrino background. We note that a modification of perturbation variables that removes all the time derivatives of scalar gravitational potentials from the dynamical equations simplifies their solution notably. The used perturbations of particle number per coordinate, not proper, volume are generally constant on superhorizon scales. In real space an analytical analysis can be extended beyond fluids to neutrinos. The faster cosmological expansion due to the neutrino background changes the acoustic and damping angular scales of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). But we find that equivalent changes can be produced by varying other standard parameters, including the primordial helium abundance. The low-l integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect is also not sensitive to neutrinos. However, the gravity of neutrino perturbations suppresses the CMB acoustic peaks for the multipoles with l>~200 while it enhances the amplitude of matter fluctuations on these scales. In addition, the perturbations of relativistic neutrinos generate a *unique phase shift* of the CMB acoustic oscillations that for adiabatic initial conditions cannot be caused by any other standard physics. The origin of the shift is traced to neutrino free-streaming velocity exceeding the sound speed of the photon-baryon plasma. We find that from a high resolution, low noise instrument such as CMBPOL the effective number of light neutrino species can be determined with an accuracy of sigma(N_nu) = 0.05 to 0.09, depending on the constraints on the helium abundance.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in PR

Making maps from Planck LFI 30 GHz data with asymmetric beams and cooler noise

The Planck satellite will observe the full sky at nine frequencies from 30 to 857 GHz. Temperature and polarization frequency maps made from these observations are prime deliverables of the Planck mission. The goal of this paper is to examine the effects of four realistic instrument systematics in the 30 GHz frequency maps: non-axially-symmetric beams, sample integration, sorption cooler noise, and pointing errors. We simulated one-year long observations of four 30 GHz detectors. The simulated timestreams contained cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal, foreground components ( both galactic and extra-galactic), instrument noise ( correlated and white), and the four instrument systematic effects. We made maps from the timelines and examined the magnitudes of the systematics effects in the maps and their angular power spectra. We also compared the maps of different mapmaking codes to see how they performed. We used five mapmaking codes ( two destripers and three optimal codes). None of our mapmaking codes makes any attempt to deconvolve the beam from its output map. Therefore all our maps had similar smoothing due to beams and sample integration. This is a complicated smoothing, because each map pixel has its own effective beam. Temperature to polarization cross-coupling due to beam mismatch causes a detectable bias in the TE spectrum of the CMB map. The effects of cooler noise and pointing errors did not appear to be major concerns for the 30 GHz channel. The only essential difference found so far between mapmaking codes that affects accuracy ( in terms of residual root-mean-square) is baseline length. All optimal codes give essentially indistinguishable results. A destriper gives the same result as the optimal codes when the baseline is set short enough ( Madam). For longer baselines destripers (Springtide and Madam) require less computing resources but deliver a noisier map.The Planck satellite will observe the full sky at nine frequencies from 30 to 857 GHz. Temperature and polarization frequency maps made from these observations are prime deliverables of the Planck mission. The goal of this paper is to examine the effects of four realistic instrument systematics in the 30 GHz frequency maps: non-axially-symmetric beams, sample integration, sorption cooler noise, and pointing errors. We simulated one-year long observations of four 30 GHz detectors. The simulated timestreams contained cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal, foreground components ( both galactic and extra-galactic), instrument noise ( correlated and white), and the four instrument systematic effects. We made maps from the timelines and examined the magnitudes of the systematics effects in the maps and their angular power spectra. We also compared the maps of different mapmaking codes to see how they performed. We used five mapmaking codes ( two destripers and three optimal codes). None of our mapmaking codes makes any attempt to deconvolve the beam from its output map. Therefore all our maps had similar smoothing due to beams and sample integration. This is a complicated smoothing, because each map pixel has its own effective beam. Temperature to polarization cross-coupling due to beam mismatch causes a detectable bias in the TE spectrum of the CMB map. The effects of cooler noise and pointing errors did not appear to be major concerns for the 30 GHz channel. The only essential difference found so far between mapmaking codes that affects accuracy ( in terms of residual root-mean-square) is baseline length. All optimal codes give essentially indistinguishable results. A destriper gives the same result as the optimal codes when the baseline is set short enough ( Madam). For longer baselines destripers (Springtide and Madam) require less computing resources but deliver a noisier map.The Planck satellite will observe the full sky at nine frequencies from 30 to 857 GHz. Temperature and polarization frequency maps made from these observations are prime deliverables of the Planck mission. The goal of this paper is to examine the effects of four realistic instrument systematics in the 30 GHz frequency maps: non-axially-symmetric beams, sample integration, sorption cooler noise, and pointing errors. We simulated one-year long observations of four 30 GHz detectors. The simulated timestreams contained cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal, foreground components ( both galactic and extra-galactic), instrument noise ( correlated and white), and the four instrument systematic effects. We made maps from the timelines and examined the magnitudes of the systematics effects in the maps and their angular power spectra. We also compared the maps of different mapmaking codes to see how they performed. We used five mapmaking codes ( two destripers and three optimal codes). None of our mapmaking codes makes any attempt to deconvolve the beam from its output map. Therefore all our maps had similar smoothing due to beams and sample integration. This is a complicated smoothing, because each map pixel has its own effective beam. Temperature to polarization cross-coupling due to beam mismatch causes a detectable bias in the TE spectrum of the CMB map. The effects of cooler noise and pointing errors did not appear to be major concerns for the 30 GHz channel. The only essential difference found so far between mapmaking codes that affects accuracy ( in terms of residual root-mean-square) is baseline length. All optimal codes give essentially indistinguishable results. A destriper gives the same result as the optimal codes when the baseline is set short enough ( Madam). For longer baselines destripers (Springtide and Madam) require less computing resources but deliver a noisier map.Peer reviewe

Reionization by active sources and its effects on the cosmic microwave background

We investigate the possible effects of reionization by active sources on the cosmic microwave background. We concentrate on the sources themselves as the origin of reionization, rather than early object formation, introducing an extra period of heating motivated by the active character of the perturbations. Using reasonable parameters, this leads to four possibilities depending on the time and duration of the energy input: delayed last scattering, double last scattering, shifted last scattering and total reionization. We show that these possibilities are only very weakly constrained by the limits on spectral distortions from the COBE FIRAS measurements. We illustrate the effects of these reionization possibilities on the angular power spectrum of temperature anisotropies and polarization for simple passive isocurvature models and simple coherent sources, observing the difference between passive and active models. Finally, we comment on the implications of this work for more realistic active sources, such as causal white noise and topological defect models. We show for these models that non-standard ionization histories can shift the peak in the CMB power to larger angular scales.Comment: 21 pages LaTeX with 11 eps figures; replaced with final version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

iNOS activity is critical for the clearance of Burkholderia mallei from infected RAW 264.7 murine macrophages

Burkholderia mallei is a facultative intracellular pathogen that can cause fatal disease in animals and humans. To better understand the role of phagocytic cells in the control of infections caused by this organism, studies were initiated to examine the interactions of B. mallei with RAW 264.7 murine macrophages. Utilizing modified kanamycin-protection assays, B. mallei was shown to survive and replicate in RAW 264.7 cells infected at multiplicities of infection (moi) of ≤ 1. In contrast, the organism was efficiently cleared by the macrophages when infected at an moi of 10. Interestingly, studies demonstrated that the monolayers only produced high levels of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-10, GM-CSF, RANTES and IFN-β when infected at an moi of 10. In addition, nitric oxide assays and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) immunoblot analyses revealed a strong correlation between iNOS activity and clearance of B. mallei from RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, treatment of activated macrophages with the iNOS inhibitor, aminoguanidine, inhibited clearance of B. mallei from infected monolayers. Based upon these results, it appears that moi significantly influence the outcome of interactions between B. mallei and murine macrophages and that iNOS activity is critical for the clearance of B. mallei from activated RAW 264.7 cells

Planck intermediate results. VIII. Filaments between interacting clusters

About half of the baryons of the Universe are expected to be in the form of filaments of hot and low density intergalactic medium. Most of these baryons remain undetected even by the most advanced X-ray observatories which are limited in sensitivity to the diffuse low density medium. The Planck satellite has provided hundreds of detections of the hot gas in clusters of galaxies via the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect and is an ideal instrument for studying extended low density media through the tSZ effect. In this paper we use the Planck data to search for signatures of a fraction of these missing baryons between pairs of galaxy clusters. Cluster pairs are good candidates for searching for the hotter and denser phase of the intergalactic medium (which is more easily observed through the SZ effect). Using an X-ray catalogue of clusters and the Planck data, we select physical pairs of clusters as candidates. Using the Planck data we construct a local map of the tSZ effect centered on each pair of galaxy clusters. ROSAT data is used to construct X-ray maps of these pairs. After having modelled and subtracted the tSZ effect and X-ray emission for each cluster in the pair we study the residuals on both the SZ and X-ray maps. For the merging cluster pair A399-A401 we observe a significant tSZ effect signal in the intercluster region beyond the virial radii of the clusters. A joint X-ray SZ analysis allows us to constrain the temperature and density of this intercluster medium. We obtain a temperature of kT = 7.1 +- 0.9, keV (consistent with previous estimates) and a baryon density of (3.7 +- 0.2)x10^-4, cm^-3. The Planck satellite mission has provided the first SZ detection of the hot and diffuse intercluster gas.Comment: Accepted by A&

New constraints on H_0 and Omega_M from SZE/X-RAY data and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

The Hubble constant, $H_0$, sets the scale of the size and age of the Universe and its determination from independent methods is still worthwhile to be investigated. In this article, by using the Sunyaev-Zel`dovich effect and X-ray surface brightness data from 38 galaxy clusters observed by Bonamente {\it{et al.}} (2006), we obtain a new estimate of $H_0$ in the context of a flat $\Lambda$CDM model. There is a degeneracy on the mass density parameter ($\Omega_{m}$) which is broken by applying a joint analysis involving the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) as given by Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This happens because the BAO signature does not depend on $H_0$. Our basic finding is that a joint analysis involving these tests yield $H_0= 0.765^{+0.035}_{-0.033}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ and $\Omega_{m}=0.27^{+0.03}_{-0.02}$. Since the hypothesis of spherical geometry assumed by Bonamente {\it {et al.}} is questionable, we have also compared the above results to a recent work where a sample of triaxial galaxy clusters has been considered.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted version in the general relativity and gravitatio