897 research outputs found
WMAP 3yr data with the CCA: anomalous emission and impact of component separation on the CMB power spectrum
The Correlated Component Analysis (CCA) allows us to estimate how the
different diffuse emissions mix in CMB experiments, exploiting also
complementary information from other surveys. It is especially useful to deal
with possible additional components. An application of CCA to WMAP maps
assuming that only the canonical Galactic emissions are present, highlights the
widespread presence of a spectrally flat "synchrotron" component, largely
uncorrelated with the synchrotron template, suggesting that an additional
foreground is indeed required. We have tested various spectral shapes for such
component, namely a power law as expected if it is flat synchrotron, and two
spectral shapes that may fit the spinning dust emission: a parabola in the logS
- log(frequency) plane, and a grey body. Quality tests applied to the
reconstructed CMB maps clearly disfavour two of the models. The CMB power
spectra, estimated from CMB maps reconstructed exploiting the three surviving
foreground models, are generally consistent with the WMAP ones, although at
least one of them gives a significantly higher quadrupole moment than found by
the WMAP team. Taking foreground modeling uncertainties into account, we find
that the mean quadrupole amplitude for the three "good" models is less than 1
sigma below the expectation from the standard LambdaCDM model. Also the other
reported deviations from model predictions are found not to be statistically
significant, except for the excess power at l~40. We confirm the evidence for a
marked North-South asymmetry in the large scale (l < 20) CMB anisotropies. We
also present a first, albeit preliminary, all-sky map of the "anomalous"
component.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figures, submitted to MNRAS, references adde
Correlated Component Analysis for diffuse component separation with error estimation on simulated Planck polarization data
We present a data analysis pipeline for CMB polarization experiments, running
from multi-frequency maps to the power spectra. We focus mainly on component
separation and, for the first time, we work out the covariance matrix
accounting for errors associated to the separation itself. This allows us to
propagate such errors and evaluate their contributions to the uncertainties on
the final products.The pipeline is optimized for intermediate and small scales,
but could be easily extended to lower multipoles. We exploit realistic
simulations of the sky, tailored for the Planck mission. The component
separation is achieved by exploiting the Correlated Component Analysis in the
harmonic domain, that we demonstrate to be superior to the real-space
application (Bonaldi et al. 2006). We present two techniques to estimate the
uncertainties on the spectral parameters of the separated components. The
component separation errors are then propagated by means of Monte Carlo
simulations to obtain the corresponding contributions to uncertainties on the
component maps and on the CMB power spectra. For the Planck polarization case
they are found to be subdominant compared to noise.Comment: 17 pages, accepted in MNRA
Frequency noise cancellation in optomechanical systems for ponderomotive squeezing
Ponderomotive squeezing of the output light of an optical cavity has been
recently observed in the MHz range in two different cavity optomechanical
devices. Quadrature squeezing becomes particularly useful at lower spectral
frequencies, for example in gravitational wave interferometers, despite being
more sensitive to excess phase and frequency noise. Here we show a
phase/frequency noise cancellation mechanism due to destructive interference
which can facilitate the production of ponderomotive squeezing in the kHz range
and we demonstrate it experimentally in an optomechanical system formed by a
Fabry-P\'{e}rot cavity with a micro-mechanical mirror.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Physical explanation expanded. Modified figure
Estimating the spectral indices of correlated astrophysical foregrounds by a second-order statistical approach
We present the first tests of a new method, the Correlated Component Analysis
(CCA) based on second-order statistics, to estimate the mixing matrix, a key
ingredient to separate astrophysical foregrounds superimposed to the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB). In the present application, the mixing matrix is
parameterized in terms of the spectral indices of Galactic synchrotron and
thermal dust emissions, while the free-free spectral index is prescribed by
basic physics, and is thus assumed to be known. We consider simulated
observations of the microwave sky with angular resolution and white stationary
noise at the nominal levels for the PLANCK satellite, and realistic foreground
emissions, with a position dependent synchrotron spectral index. We work with
two sets of PLANCK frequency channels: the low frequency set, from 30 to 143
GHz, complemented with the Haslam 408 MHz map, and the high frequency set, from
217 to 545 GHz. The concentration of intense free-free emission on the Galactic
plane introduces a steep dependence of the spectral index of the global
Galactic emission with Galactic latitude, close to the Galactic equator. This
feature makes difficult for the CCA to recover the synchrotron spectral index
in this region, given the limited angular resolution of PLANCK, especially at
low frequencies. A cut of a narrow strip around the Galactic equator (|b|<3
deg), however, allows us to overcome this problem. We show that, once this
strip is removed, the CCA allows an effective foreground subtraction, with
residual uncertainties inducing a minor contribution to errors on the recovered
CMB power spectrum.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures and 1 table accepted by MNRA
Model Independent Foreground Power Spectrum Estimation using WMAP 5-year Data
In this paper, we propose & implement on WMAP 5-year data, a model
independent approach of foreground power spectrum estimation for multifrequency
observations of CMB experiments. Recently a model independent approach of CMB
power spectrum estimation was proposed by Saha et al. 2006. This methodology
demonstrates that CMB power spectrum can be reliably estimated solely from WMAP
data without assuming any template models for the foreground components. In the
current paper, we extend this work to estimate the galactic foreground power
spectrum using the WMAP 5 year maps following a self contained analysis. We
apply the model independent method in harmonic basis to estimate the foreground
power spectrum and frequency dependence of combined foregrounds. We also study
the behaviour of synchrotron spectral index variation over different regions of
the sky. We compare our results with those obtained from MEM foreground maps
which are formed in pixel space. We find that relative to our model independent
estimates MEM maps overestimates the foreground power close to galactic plane
and underestimates it at high latitudes.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Anomalous Microwave Emission from the HII region RCW175
We present evidence for anomalous microwave emission in the RCW175 \hii
region. Motivated by 33 GHz 13\arcmin resolution data from the Very Small
Array (VSA), we observed RCW175 at 31 GHz with the Cosmic Background Imager
(CBI) at a resolution of 4\arcmin. The region consists of two distinct
components, G29.0-0.6 and G29.1-0.7, which are detected at high signal-to-noise
ratio. The integrated flux density is Jy at 31 GHz, in good
agreement with the VSA. The 31 GHz flux density is Jy
() above the expected value from optically thin free-free emission
based on lower frequency radio data and thermal dust constrained by IRAS and
WMAP data. Conventional emission mechanisms such as optically thick emission
from ultracompact \hii regions cannot easily account for this excess. We
interpret the excess as evidence for electric dipole emission from small
spinning dust grains, which does provide an adequate fit to the data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, submmited to ApJ Letter
Maximum likelihood, parametric component separation and CMB B-mode detection in suborbital experiments
We investigate the performance of the parametric Maximum Likelihood component
separation method in the context of the CMB B-mode signal detection and its
characterization by small-scale CMB suborbital experiments. We consider
high-resolution (FWHM=8') balloon-borne and ground-based observatories mapping
low dust-contrast sky areas of 400 and 1000 square degrees, in three frequency
channels, 150, 250, 410 GHz, and 90, 150, 220 GHz, with sensitivity of order 1
to 10 micro-K per beam-size pixel. These are chosen to be representative of
some of the proposed, next-generation, bolometric experiments. We study the
residual foreground contributions left in the recovered CMB maps in the pixel
and harmonic domain and discuss their impact on a determination of the
tensor-to-scalar ratio, r. In particular, we find that the residuals derived
from the simulated data of the considered balloon-borne observatories are
sufficiently low not to be relevant for the B-mode science. However, the
ground-based observatories are in need of some external information to permit
satisfactory cleaning. We find that if such information is indeed available in
the latter case, both the ground-based and balloon-borne experiments can detect
the values of r as low as ~0.04 at 95% confidence level. The contribution of
the foreground residuals to these limits is found to be then subdominant and
these are driven by the statistical uncertainty due to CMB, including E-to-B
leakage, and noise. We emphasize that reaching such levels will require a
sufficient control of the level of systematic effects present in the data.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 6 table
Gravitational-wave astronomy: the high-frequency window
This contribution is divided in two parts. The first part provides a
text-book level introduction to gravitational radiation. The key concepts
required for a discussion of gravitational-wave physics are introduced. In
particular, the quadrupole formula is applied to the anticipated
``bread-and-butter'' source for detectors like LIGO, GEO600, EGO and TAMA300:
inspiralling compact binaries. The second part provides a brief review of high
frequency gravitational waves. In the frequency range above (say) 100Hz,
gravitational collapse, rotational instabilities and oscillations of the
remnant compact objects are potentially important sources of gravitational
waves. Significant and unique information concerning the various stages of
collapse, the evolution of protoneutron stars and the details of the
supranuclear equation of state of such objects can be drawn from careful study
of the gravitational-wave signal. As the amount of exciting physics one may be
able to study via the detections of gravitational waves from these sources is
truly inspiring, there is strong motivation for the development of future
generations of ground based detectors sensitive in the range from hundreds of
Hz to several kHz.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, Lectures presented at the 2nd Aegean Summer
School on the Early Universe, Syros, Greece, September 200
Estimating the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the effect of residual foreground contamination
We consider future balloon-borne and ground-based suborbital experiments
designed to search for inflationary gravitational waves, and investigate the
impact of residual foregrounds that remain in the estimated cosmic microwave
background maps. This is achieved by propagating foreground modelling
uncertainties from the component separation, under the assumption of a
spatially uniform foreground frequency scaling, through to the power spectrum
estimates, and up to measurement of the tensor to scalar ratio in the parameter
estimation step. We characterize the error covariance due to subtracted
foregrounds, and find it to be subdominant compared to instrumental noise and
sample variance in our simulated data analysis. We model the unsubtracted
residual foreground contribution using a two-parameter power law and show that
marginalization over these foreground parameters is effective in accounting for
a bias due to excess foreground power at low . We conclude that, at least
in the suborbital experimental setups we have simulated, foreground errors may
be modeled and propagated up to parameter estimation with only a slight
degradation of the target sensitivity of these experiments derived neglecting
the presence of the foregrounds.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in JCA
Constraining Primordial Non-Gaussianity with High-Redshift Probes
We present an analysis of the constraints on the amplitude of primordial
non-Gaussianity of local type described by the dimensionless parameter . These constraints are set by the auto-correlation functions (ACFs) of two
large scale structure probes, the radio sources from NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS)
and the quasar catalogue of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Release Six (SDSS DR6
QSOs), as well as by their cross-correlation functions (CCFs) with the cosmic
microwave background (CMB) temperature map (Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect).
Several systematic effects that may affect the observational estimates of the
ACFs and of the CCFs are investigated and conservatively accounted for. Our
approach exploits the large-scale scale-dependence of the non-Gaussian halo
bias. The derived constraints on {} coming from the NVSS CCF and
from the QSO ACF and CCF are weaker than those previously obtained from the
NVSS ACF, but still consistent with them. Finally, we obtain the constraints on
() and () from
NVSS data and SDSS DR6 QSO data, respectively.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, Accepted for publication on JCA
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