Circular scans for CMB anisotropy observation and analysis

A number of experiments for measuring anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background use scanning strategies in which temperature fluctuations are measured along circular scans on the sky. It is possible, from a large number of such intersecting circular scans, to build two-dimensional sky maps for subsequent analysis. However, since instrumental effects --- especially the excess low-frequency 1/f noise --- project onto such two-dimensional maps in a non-trivial way, we discuss the analysis approach which focuses on information contained in the individual circular scans. This natural way of looking at CMB data from experiments scanning on the circles combines the advantages of elegant simplicity of Fourier series for the computation of statistics useful for constraining cosmological scenarios,and superior efficiency in analysing and quantifying most of the crucial instrumental effects.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures (.ps), submitted to MNRA

Three-Point Statistics from a New Perspective

Multipole expansion of spatial three-point statistics is introduced as a tool for investigating and displaying configuration dependence. The novel parametrization renders the relation between bi-spectrum and three-point correlation function especially transparent as a set of two-dimensional Hankel transforms. It is expected on theoretical grounds, that three-point statistics can be described accurately with only a few multipoles. In particular, we show that in the weakly non-linear regime, the multipoles of the reduced bispectrum, $Q_l$, are significant only up to quadrupole. Moreover, the non-linear bias in the weakly non-linear regime only affects the monopole order of these statistics. As a consequence, a simple, novel set of estimators can be constructed to constrain galaxy bias. In addition, the quadrupole to dipole ratio is independent of the bias, thus it becomes a novel diagnostic of the underlying theoretical assumptions: weakly non-linear gravity and perturbative local bias. To illustrate the use of our approach, we present predictions based on both power law, and CDM models. We show that the presently favoured SDSS-WMAP concordance model displays strong ``baryon bumps'' in the $Q_l$'s. Finally, we sketch out three practical techniques estimate these novel quantities: they amount to new, and for the first time edge corrected, estimators for the bispectrum.Comment: 5 pages 6 figures, ApL accepte

The FIR/submm window on galaxy formation

Our view on the deep universe has been so far biased towards optically bright galaxies. Now, the measurement of the Cosmic Infrared Background in FIRAS and DIRBE residuals, and the observations of FIR/submm sources by the ISOPHOT and SCUBA instruments begin unveiling the ``optically dark side'' of galaxy formation. Though the origin of dust heating is still unsolved, it appears very likely that a large fraction of the FIR/submm emission is due to heavily-extinguished star formation. Consequently, the level of the CIRB implies that about 2/3 of galaxy/star formation in the universe is hidden by dust shrouds. In this review, we introduce a new modeling of galaxy formation and evolution that provides us with specific predictions in FIR/submm wavebands. These predictions are compared with the current status of the observations. Finally, the capabilities of current and forthcoming instruments for all-sky and deep surveys of FIR/submm sources are briefly described.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, 5 postscript figures, to appear in ``The Birth of Galaxies'', 1999, B. Guiderdoni, F.R. Bouchet, T.X. Thuan & J. Tran Thanh Van (eds), Editions Frontiere

Previrialization

We propose a method to solve the "previrialization" problem of whether the non-linear interactions between perturbations at different scales increase or decrease the rate of growth of structure. As a measure of this effect we calculate the weakly non-linear corrections to the variance of the probability distribution function of the density field. We assume Gaussian initial conditions and use perturbative expansions to calculate these corrections for scale-free initial power spectra. As a realistic example, we also compute the corrections for the spectrum proposed by Peacock \& Dodds (1994). The calculations are performed for both a Gaussian and a top-hat smoothing of the evolved fields. We show that the effect of weakly non-linear interactions depends strongly on the spectral index; they increase the variance for the spectral index n=-2, but decrease it for n \ge -1. Finally, we compare our perturbative calculations to N-body simulations and a formula of a type proposed by Hamilton et al. (1991)

Reconstructing the shape of the correlation function

We develop an estimator for the correlation function which, in the ensemble average, returns the shape of the correlation function, even for signals that have significant correlations on the scale of the survey region. Our estimator is general and works in any number of dimensions. We develop versions of the estimator for both diffuse and discrete signals. As an application, we examine Monte Carlo simulations of X-ray background measurements. These include a realistic, spatially-inhomogeneous population of spurious detector events. We discuss applying the estimator to the averaging of correlation functions evaluated on several small fields, and to other cosmological applications.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJS. Methods and results unchanged but text is expanded and significantly reordered in response to refere

Semi-analytic modelling of galaxy evolution in the IR/submm range

This paper proposes a new semi-analytic modelling of galaxy properties in the IR/submm wavelength range, which is explicitly set in a cosmological framework. This type of approach has had some success in reproducing the optical properties of galaxies. We hereafter propose a simple extension to the IR/submm range. We estimate the IR/submm luminosities of ``luminous UV/IR galaxies'', and we explore how much star formation could be hidden in heavily--extinguished, ``ultraluminous IR galaxies'' by designing a family of evolutionary scenarios which are consistent with the current status of the ``cosmic constraints'', as well as with the IRAS luminosity function and faint counts, but with different high-z IR luminosity densities. However, these scenarios generate a Cosmic Infrared Background whose spectrum falls within the range of the isotropic IR component detected by Puget et al. (1996) and revisited by Guiderdoni et al. (1997). We give predictions for the faint galaxy counts and redshift distributions at IR and submm wavelengths. The submm range is very sensitive to the details of the evolutionary scenarios. As a result, the on-going and forthcoming observations with ISO and SCUBA (and later with SIRTF, SOFIA, FIRST and PLANCK) will put strong constraints on the evolution of galaxies at z=1 and beyond.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, 20 postscript figures, accepted for publication in Month. Not. Roy. Astron. So

Cosmic microwave background power spectrum estimation with the destriping technique

Extraction of the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) angular power spectrum is a challenging task for current and future CMB experiments due to the large data sets involved. Here we describe an implementation of MASTER (Monte carlo Apodised Spherical Transform EstimatoR) which exploits the destriping technique as a map-making method. In this method a noise estimate based on destriped noise-only MC (Monte Carlo) simulations is subtracted from the pseudo angular power spectrum. As a working case we use realistic simulations of the PLANCK LFI (Low Frequency Instrument). We found that the effect of destriping on a pure sky signal is minimal and requires no correction. Instead we found an effect related to the distribution of detector pointings, which affects the high multipole part of the power spectrum. We correct for this by subtracting a ``signal bias'' estimated by MC simulations. We also give analytical estimates for this signal bias. Our method is fast and accurate enough (the estimator is un-biased and errors are close to theoretical expectations for maximal accuracy) to estimate the CMB angular power spectra for current and future CMB space missions. This study is related to PLANCK LFI activities.Comment: 16 pages, 23 figures, submitted to MNRA