5,244 research outputs found
CMB Likelihood Functions for Beginners and Experts
Although the broad outlines of the appropriate pipeline for cosmological
likelihood analysis with CMB data has been known for several years, only
recently have we had to contend with the full, large-scale, computationally
challenging problem involving both highly-correlated noise and extremely large
datasets (). In this talk we concentrate on the beginning and end of
this process. First, we discuss estimating the noise covariance from the data
itself in a rigorous and unbiased way; this is essentially an iterated
minimum-variance mapmaking approach. We also discuss the unbiased determination
of cosmological parameters from estimates of the power spectrum or experimental
bandpowers.Comment: Long-delayed submission. In AIP Conference Proceedings "3K Cosmology"
held in Rome, Oct 5-10, 1998, edited by Luciano Maiani, Francesco Melchiorri
and Nicola Vittorio, 343-347, New York, American Institute of Physics 199
Theory of exciton fine structure in semiconductor quantum dots: quantum dot anisotropy and lateral electric field
Theory of exciton fine structure in semiconductor quantum dots and its
dependence on quantum dot anisotropy and external lateral electric field is
presented. The effective exciton Hamiltonian including long range electron-hole
exchange interaction is derived within the k*p effective mass approximation
(EMA). The exchange matrix elements of the Hamiltonian are expressed explicitly
in terms of electron and hole envelope functions. The matrix element
responsible for the "bright" exciton splitting is identified and analyzed. An
excitonic fine structure for a model quantum dot with quasi- two-dimensional
anisotropic harmonic oscillator (2DLAHO) confining potential is analyzed as a
function of the shape anisotropy, size and applied lateral electric field
COMPASS: a 2.6m telescope for CMBR polarization studies
COMPASS (COsmic Microwave Polarization at Small Scale) is an experiment devoted to measuring the polarization of the CMBR. Its design and characteristics are presented
A limit on the detectability of the energy scale of inflation
We show that the polarization of the cosmic microwave background can be used
to detect gravity waves from inflation if the energy scale of inflation is
above 3.2 times 10^15 GeV. These gravity waves generate polarization patterns
with a curl, whereas (to first order in perturbation theory) density
perturbations do not. The limiting ``noise'' arises from the second--order
generation of curl from density perturbations, or rather residuals from its
subtraction. We calculate optimal sky coverage and detectability limits as a
function of detector sensitivity and observing time.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR
Design of a flight qualified long-life cryocooler
A second generation Stirling cycle cryogenic refrigerator with a linear drive, magnetic bearings, and clearance seals; designed to produce 5 watts of cooling at 65 Kelvin and to meet Space Shuttle mission requirements is described. The first generation refrigerator met all performance specifications, and operated with no failure for over 12,030 hours. Meeting launch requirements necessitated improvements in the electromagnetic bearings, the radial position sensors, and in the structural design of the moving elements. Organic contamination was eliminated by the use of all metal and ceramic construction. Reductions in system input power are attained by an integral magnetic spring/motor for the displacer and by more efficient linear motors and drive electronics
Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Window Functions Revisited
The primary results of most observations of cosmic microwave background (CMB)
anisotropy are estimates of the angular power spectrum averaged through some
broad band, called band-powers. These estimates are in turn what are used to
produce constraints on cosmological parameters due to all CMB observations.
Essential to this estimation of cosmological parameters is the calculation of
the expected band-power for a given experiment, given a theoretical power
spectrum. Here we derive the "band power" window function which should be used
for this calculation, and point out that it is not equivalent to the window
function used to calculate the variance. This important distinction has been
absent from much of the literature: the variance window function is often used
as the band-power window function. We discuss the validity of this assumed
equivalence, the role of window functions for experiments that constrain the
power in {\it multiple} bands, and summarize a prescription for reporting
experimental results. The analysis methods detailed here are applied in a
companion paper to three years of data from the Medium Scale Anisotropy
Measurement.Comment: 5 pages, 1 included .eps figure, PRD in press---final published
versio
A Method for Individual Source Brightness Estimation in Single- and Multi-band Data
We present a method of reliably extracting the flux of individual sources
from sky maps in the presence of noise and a source population in which number
counts are a steeply falling function of flux. The method is an extension of a
standard Bayesian procedure in the millimeter/submillimeter literature. As in
the standard method, the prior applied to source flux measurements is derived
from an estimate of the source counts as a function of flux, dN/dS. The key
feature of the new method is that it enables reliable extraction of properties
of individual sources, which previous methods in the literature do not. We
first present the method for extracting individual source fluxes from data in a
single observing band, then we extend the method to multiple bands, including
prior information about the spectral behavior of the source population(s). The
multi-band estimation technique is particularly relevant for classifying
individual sources into populations according to their spectral behavior. We
find that proper treatment of the correlated prior information between
observing bands is key to avoiding significant biases in estimations of
multi-band fluxes and spectral behavior, biases which lead to significant
numbers of misclassified sources. We test the single- and multi-band versions
of the method using simulated observations with observing parameters similar to
that of the South Pole Telescope data used in Vieira, et al. (2010).Comment: 11 emulateapj pages, 3 figures, revised to match published versio
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