1,348 research outputs found
Search For Unresolved Sources In The COBE-DMR Two-Year Sky Maps
We have searched the temperature maps from the COBE Differential Microwave
Radiometers (DMR) first two years of data for evidence of unresolved sources.
The high-latitude sky (|b| > 30\deg) contains no sources brighter than 192 uK
thermodynamic temperature (322 Jy at 53 GHz). The cumulative count of sources
brighter than threshold T, N(> T), is consistent with a superposition of
instrument noise plus a scale-invariant spectrum of cosmic temperature
fluctuations normalized to Qrms-PS = 17 uK. We examine the temperature maps
toward nearby clusters and find no evidence for any Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect,
\Delta y < 7.3 x 10^{-6} (95% CL) averaged over the DMR beam. We examine the
temperature maps near the brightest expected radio sources and detect no
evidence of significant emission. The lack of bright unresolved sources in the
DMR maps, taken with anisotropy measurements on smaller angular scales, places
a weak constraint on the integral number density of any unresolved
Planck-spectrum sources brighter than flux density S, n(> S) < 2 x 10^4 (S/1
Jy)^{-2} sr^{-1}.Comment: 16 pages including 2 figures, uuencoded PostScript, COBE preprint
94-0
Power Spectrum Estimators For Large CMB Datasets
Forthcoming high-resolution observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) radiation will generate datasets many orders of magnitude larger than
have been obtained to date. The size and complexity of such datasets presents a
very serious challenge to analysing them with existing or anticipated
computers. Here we present an investigation of the currently favored algorithm
for obtaining the power spectrum from a sky-temperature map --- the quadratic
estimator. We show that, whilst improving on direct evaluation of the
likelihood function, current implementations still inherently scale as the
equivalent of the cube of the number of pixels or worse, and demonstrate the
critical importance of choosing the right implementation for a particular
dataset.Comment: 8 pages LATEX, no figures, corrected misaligned columns in table
Angular Power Spectrum of the Microwave Background Anisotropy seen by the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer
The angular power spectrum estimator developed by Peebles (1973) and Hauser &
Peebles (1973) has been modified and applied to the 4 year maps produced by the
COBE DMR. The power spectrum of the observed sky has been compared to the power
spectra of a large number of simulated random skies produced with noise equal
to the observed noise and primordial density fluctuation power spectra of power
law form, with . The best fitting value of the spectral index
in the range of spatial scales corresponding to spherical harmonic indices is an apparent spectral index = 1.13 (+0.3)
(-0.4) which is consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich primordial spectral
index The best fitting amplitude for is = 18 uK.Comment: 17 pages including 3 PostScript figures. Submitted to The
Astrophysical Journal (Letters
2-Point Correlations in the COBE DMR 4-Year Anisotropy Maps
The 2-point temperature correlation function is evaluated from the 4-year
COBE DMR microwave anisotropy maps. We examine the 2-point function, which is
the Legendre transform of the angular power spectrum, and show that the data
are statistically consistent from channel to channel and frequency to
frequency. The most likely quadrupole normalization is computed for a
scale-invariant power-law spectrum of CMB anisotropy, using a variety of data
combinations. For a given data set, the normalization inferred from the 2-point
data is consistent with that inferred by other methods. The smallest and
largest normalization deduced from any data combination are 16.4 and 19.6 uK
respectively, with a value ~18 uK generally preferred.Comment: Sumbitted to ApJ Letter
Power Spectrum of Primordial Inhomogeneity Determined from the 4-Year COBE DMR Sky Maps
Fourier analysis and power spectrum estimation of the cosmic microwave
background anisotropy on an incompletely sampled sky developed by Gorski (1994)
has been applied to the high-latitude portion of the 4-year COBE DMR 31.5, 53
and 90 GHz sky maps. Likelihood analysis using newly constructed Galaxy cuts
(extended beyond |b| = 20deg to excise the known foreground emission) and
simultaneously correcting for the faint high latitude galactic foreground
emission is conducted on the DMR sky maps pixelized in both ecliptic and
galactic coordinates. The Bayesian power spectrum estimation from the
foreground corrected 4-year COBE DMR data renders n ~ 1.2 +/- 0.3, and
Q_{rms-PS} ~ 15.3^{+3.7}_{-2.8} microK (projections of the two-parameter
likelihood). These results are consistent with the Harrison-Zel'dovich n=1
model of amplitude Q_{rms-PS} ~ 18 microK detected with significance exceeding
14sigma (dQ/Q < 0.07). (A small power spectrum amplitude drop below the
published 2-year results is predominantly due to the application of the new,
extended Galaxy cuts.)Comment: 9 pages of text in LaTeX, 1 postscript Table, 4 postscript figures (2
color plates), submitted to The Astrophysical Journal (Letters
Signal-to-Noise Eigenmode Analysis of the Two-Year COBE Maps
To test a theory of cosmic microwave background fluctuations, it is natural
to expand an anisotropy map in an uncorrelated basis of linear combinations of
pixel amplitudes --- statistically-independent for both the noise and the
signal. These -eigenmodes are indispensible for rapid Bayesian analyses of
anisotropy experiments, applied here to the recently-released two-year COBE
{\it dmr} maps and the {\it firs} map. A 2-parameter model with an overall
band-power and a spectral tilt describes well inflation-based
theories. The band-powers for {\it all} the {\it dmr} + GHz
and {\it firs} 170 GHz maps agree, , and
are largely independent of tilt and degree of (sharp) -filtering. Further,
after optimal -filtering, the {\it dmr} maps reveal the same
tilt-independent large scale features and correlation function. The unfiltered
{\it dmr} + index is ; increasing the
-filtering gives a broad region at (1.0--1.2)0.5, a jump to
(1.4--1.6)0.5, then a drop to 0.8, the higher values clearly seen to be
driven by -power spectrum data points that do not fit single-tilt models.
These indices are nicely compatible with inflation values (0.8--1.2), but
not overwhelmingly so.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.Letters, 4 pages, uuencoded compressed
PostScript; also bdmr2.ps.Z, via anonymous ftp to ftp.cita.utoronto.ca, cd to
/pub/dick/yukawa; CITA-94-2
ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIOR OF COMPLEX SCALAR FIELDS IN A FRIEDMAN-LEMAITRE UNIVERSE
We study the coupled Einstein-Klein-Gordon equations for a complex scalar
field with and without a quartic self-interaction in a curvatureless
Friedman-Lema\^{\i}\-tre Universe. The equations can be written as a set of
four coupled first order non-linear differential equations, for which we
establish the phase portrait for the time evolution of the scalar field. To
that purpose we find the singular points of the differential equations lying in
the finite region and at infinity of the phase space and study the
corresponding asymptotic behavior of the solutions. This knowledge is of
relevance, since it provides the initial conditions which are needed to solve
numerically the differential equations. For some singular points lying at
infinity we recover the expected emergence of an inflationary stage.Comment: uuencoded, compressed tarfile containing a 15 pages Latex file and 2
postscipt figures. Accepted for publication on Phys. Rev.
Natural Inflation From Fermion Loops
``Natural'' inflationary theories are a class of models in which inflation is
driven by a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. In this paper we consider two models,
one old and one new, in which the potential for inflation is generated by loop
effects from a fermion sector which explicitly breaks a global symmetry.
In both models, we retrieve the ``standard'' natural inflation potential,
, as a limiting case of the exact one-loop potential, but we
carry out a general analysis of the models including the limiting case.
Constraints from the COBE DMR observation and from theoretical consistency are
used to limit the parameters of the models, and successful inflation occurs
without the necessity of fine-tuning the parameters.Comment: (Revised) 15 pages, LaTeX (revTeX), 8 figures in uuencoded PostScript
format. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D 15. Corrected
definition of power spectrum and added three reference
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