109 research outputs found
Reionization constraints from five-year WMAP data
We study the constraints on reionization from five years of WMAP data,
parametrizing the evolution of the average fraction of ionized hydrogen with
principal components that provide a complete basis for describing the effects
of reionization on large-scale E-mode polarization. Using Markov Chain Monte
Carlo methods, we find that the resulting model-independent estimate of the
total optical depth is nearly twice as well determined as the estimate from
3-year WMAP data, in agreement with simpler analyses that assume instantaneous
reionization. The mean value of the optical depth from principal components is
slightly larger than the instantaneous value; we find tau=0.097+/-0.017 using
only large-scale polarization, and tau=0.101+/-0.019 when temperature data is
included. Likewise, scale invariant n_s=1 spectra are no longer strongly
disfavored by WMAP alone. Higher moments of the ionization history show less
improvement in the 5-year data than the optical depth. By plotting the
distribution of polarization power for models from the MCMC analysis, we show
that extracting most of the remaining information about the shape of the
reionization history from the CMB requires better measurements of E-mode
polarization on scales of l~10-20. Conversely, the quadrupole and octopole
polarization power is already predicted to better than cosmic variance given
any allowed ionization history at z<30 so that more precise measurements will
test the LambdaCDM paradigm.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; submitted to ApJ
Correlations in the (Sub)Mil1imeter Background from ACT x BLAST
We present measurements of the auto- and cross-frequency correlation power spectra of the cosmic (sub)millimeter background at: 250, 350, and 500 microns (1200, 860, and 600 GHz) from observations made with the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope, BLAST; and at 1380 and 2030 microns (218 and 148 GHz) from observations made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, ACT. The overlapping observations cover 8.6 deg(sup 2) in an area relatively free of Galactic dust near the south ecliptic pole (SEP). The ACT bands are sensitive to radiation from the CMB, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect from galaxy clusters, and to emission by radio and dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs), while the dominant contribution to the BLAST bands is from DSFGs. We confirm and extend the BLAST analysis of clustering with an independent pipeline, and also detect correlations between the ACT and BLAST maps at over 25(sigma) significance, which we interpret as a detection of the DSFGs in the ACT maps. In addition to a Poisson component in the cross-frequency power spectra, we detect a clustered signal at 4(sigma), and using a model for the DSFG evolution and number counts, we successfully fit all our spectra with a linear clustering model and a bias that depends only on red shift and not on scale. Finally, the data are compared to, and generally agree with, phenomenological models for the DSFG population. This study represents a first of its kind, and demonstrates the constraining power of the cross-frequency correlation technique to constrain models for the DSFGs. Similar analyses with more data will impose tight constraints 011 future models
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Cross Correlation with Planck maps
We present the temperature power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background
obtained by cross-correlating maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT)
at 148 and 218 GHz with maps from the Planck satellite at 143 and 217 GHz, in
two overlapping regions covering 592 square degrees. We find excellent
agreement between the two datasets at both frequencies, quantified using the
variance of the residuals between the ACT power spectra and the ACTxPlanck
cross-spectra. We use these cross-correlations to calibrate the ACT data at 148
and 218 GHz, to 0.7% and 2% precision respectively. We find no evidence for
anisotropy in the calibration parameter. We compare the Planck 353 GHz power
spectrum with the measured amplitudes of dust and cosmic infrared background
(CIB) of ACT data at 148 and 218 GHz. We also compare planet and point source
measurements from the two experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Results from the Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) Experiment
The Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) is an experiment designed to measure cosmic
microwave background (CMB) polarization at large angular scales (). It
operated from the ACT site at 5190~m elevation in northern Chile at 145 GHz
with a net sensitivity (NEQ) of 41 K. It employed an
ambient-temperature sapphire half-wave plate rotating at 2.55 Hz to modulate
the incident polarization signal and reduce systematic effects. We report here
on the analysis of data from a 2400 deg patch of sky centered at
declination and right ascension . We perform a blind
analysis. After unblinding, we find agreement with the Planck TE and EE
measurements on the same region of sky. We marginally detect polarized dust
emission and give an upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of (95%
cl) with the equivalent of 100 on-sky days of observation. We also present a
new measurement of the polarization of Tau A and introduce new methods
associated with HWP-based observations.Comment: 38 pages, 11 figure
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
Cosmological Parameters from Pre-Planck CMB Measurements
Recent data from the WMAP, ACT and SPT experiments provide precise
measurements of the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum over
a wide range of angular scales. The combination of these observations is well
fit by the standard, spatially flat LCDM cosmological model, constraining six
free parameters to within a few percent. The scalar spectral index, n_s =
0.9690 +/- 0.0089, is less than unity at the 3.6 sigma level, consistent with
simple models of inflation. The damping tail of the power spectrum at high
resolution, combined with the amplitude of gravitational lensing measured by
ACT and SPT, constrains the effective number of relativistic species to be
N_eff = 3.28 +/- 0.40, in agreement with the standard model's three species of
light neutrinos.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Measurement of the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Using the Skewness of the CMB Temperature Distribution
We present a detection of the unnormalized skewness induced by the
thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect in filtered Atacama Cosmology Telescope
(ACT) 148 GHz cosmic microwave background temperature maps. Contamination due
to infrared and radio sources is minimized by template subtraction of resolved
sources and by constructing a mask using outlying values in the 218 GHz
(tSZ-null) ACT maps. We measure = -31 +- 6 \mu K^3 (measurement error
only) or +- 14 \mu K^3 (including cosmic variance error) in the filtered ACT
data, a 5-sigma detection. We show that the skewness is a sensitive probe of
sigma_8, and use analytic calculations and tSZ simulations to obtain
cosmological constraints from this measurement. From this signal alone we infer
a value of sigma_8= 0.79 +0.03 -0.03 (68 % C.L.) +0.06 -0.06 (95 % C.L.). Our
results demonstrate that measurements of non-Gaussianity can be a useful method
for characterizing the tSZ effect and extracting the underlying cosmological
information.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Replaced with version accepted by Phys. Rev. D,
with improvements to the likelihood function and the IR source treatment;
only minor changes in the result
CCAT-prime: a novel telescope for submillimeter astronomy
The CCAT-prime telescope is a 6-meter aperture, crossed-Dragone telescope,
designed for millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength observations. It will be
located at an altitude of 5600 meters, just below the summit of Cerro
Chajnantor in the high Atacama region of Chile. The telescope's unobscured
optics deliver a field of view of almost 8 degrees over a large, flat focal
plane, enabling it to accommodate current and future instrumentation fielding
>100k diffraction-limited beams for wavelengths less than a millimeter. The
mount is a novel design with the aluminum-tiled mirrors nested inside the
telescope structure. The elevation housing has an integrated shutter that can
enclose the mirrors, protecting them from inclement weather. The telescope is
designed to co-host multiple instruments over its nominal 15 year lifetime. It
will be operated remotely, requiring minimum maintenance and on-site activities
due to the harsh working conditions on the mountain. The design utilizes
nickel-iron alloy (Invar) and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials
in the mirror support structure, achieving a relatively temperature-insensitive
mount. We discuss requirements, specifications, critical design elements, and
the expected performance of the CCAT-prime telescope. The telescope is being
built by CCAT Observatory, Inc., a corporation formed by an international
partnership of universities. More information about CCAT and the CCAT-prime
telescope can be found at www.ccatobservatory.org.Comment: Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescope + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin,
Texas, USA; Proceedings Volume 10700, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes
VII; 107005X (2018
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: the stellar content of galaxy clusters selected using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect
We present a first measurement of the stellar mass component of galaxy
clusters selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, using 3.6 um and 4.5
um photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Our sample consists of 14
clusters detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), which span the
redshift range 0.27 < z < 1.07 (median z = 0.50), and have dynamical mass
measurements, accurate to about 30 per cent, with median M500 = 6.9 x 10^{14}
MSun. We measure the 3.6 um and 4.5 um galaxy luminosity functions, finding the
characteristic magnitude (m*) and faint-end slope (alpha) to be similar to
those for IR-selected cluster samples. We perform the first measurements of the
scaling of SZ-observables (Y500 and y0) with both brightest cluster galaxy
(BCG) stellar mass and total cluster stellar mass (M500star). We find a
significant correlation between BCG stellar mass and Y500 (E(z)^{-2/3} DA^2
Y500 ~ M*^{1.2 +/- 0.6}), although we are not able to obtain a strong
constraint on the slope of the relation due to the small sample size.
Additionally, we obtain E(z)^{-2/3} DA^2 Y500 ~ M500star^{1.0 +/- 0.6} for the
scaling with total stellar mass. The mass fraction in stars spans the range
0.006-0.034, with the second ranked cluster in terms of dynamical mass (ACT-CL
J0237-4939) having an unusually low total stellar mass and the lowest stellar
mass fraction. For the five clusters with gas mass measurements available in
the literature, we see no evidence for a shortfall of baryons relative to the
cosmic mean value.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 12 pages, 10 figure
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters at 148 GHz from Three Seasons of Data
[Abridged] We present a catalog of 68 galaxy clusters, of which 19 are new
discoveries, detected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZ) at 148 GHz in the
Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) survey of 504 square degrees on the celestial
equator. A subsample of 48 clusters within the 270 square degree region
overlapping SDSS Stripe 82 is estimated to be 90% complete for M_500c > 4.5e14
Msun and 0.15 < z < 0.8. While matched filters are used to detect the clusters,
the sample is studied further through a "Profile Based Amplitude Analysis"
using a single filter at a fixed \theta_500 = 5.9' angular scale. This new
approach takes advantage of the "Universal Pressure Profile" (UPP) to fix the
relationship between the cluster characteristic size (R_500) and the integrated
Compton parameter (Y_500). The UPP scalings are found to be nearly identical to
an adiabatic model, while a model incorporating non-thermal pressure better
matches dynamical mass measurements and masses from the South Pole Telescope. A
high signal to noise ratio subsample of 15 ACT clusters is used to obtain
cosmological constraints. We first confirm that constraints from SZ data are
limited by uncertainty in the scaling relation parameters rather than sample
size or measurement uncertainty. We next add in seven clusters from the ACT
Southern survey, including their dynamical mass measurements based on galaxy
velocity dispersions. In combination with WMAP7 these data simultaneously
constrain the scaling relation and cosmological parameters, yielding \sigma_8 =
0.829 \pm 0.024 and \Omega_m = 0.292 \pm 0.025. The results include
marginalization over a 15% bias in dynamical mass relative to the true halo
mass. In an extension to LCDM that incorporates non-zero neutrino mass density,
we combine our data with WMAP7+BAO+Hubble constant measurements to constrain
\Sigma m_\nu < 0.29 eV (95% C. L.).Comment: 32 pages, 21 figures To appear in J. Cosmology and Astroparticle
Physic
- …