The effect of the linear term on the wavelet estimator of primordial non-Gaussianity

In this work we present constraints on different shapes of primordial non-Gaussianity using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 7-year data and the spherical Mexican hat wavelet fnl estimator including the linear term correction. In particular we focus on the local, equilateral and orthogonal shapes. We first analyse the main statistical properties of the wavelet estimator and show the conditions to reach optimality. We include the linear term correction in our estimators and compare the estimates with the values already published using only the cubic term. The estimators are tested with realistic WMAP simulations with anisotropic noise and the WMAP KQ75 sky cut. The inclusion of the linear term correction shows a negligible improvement (< 1 per cent) in the error-bar for any of the shapes considered. The results of this analysis show that, in the particular case of the wavelet estimator, the optimality for WMAP anisotropy levels is basically achieved with the mean subtraction and in practical terms there is no need of including a linear term once the mean has been subtracted. Our best estimates are now: local fnl = 39.0 +/ 21.4, equilateral fnl = -62.8 +/- 154.0 and orthogonal fnl = -159.8 +/- 115.1 (all cases 68 per cent CL). We have also computed the expected linear term correction for simulated Planck maps with anisotropic noise at 143 GHz following the Planck Sky Model and including a mask. The improvement achieved in this case for the local fnl error-bar is also negligible (0.4 per cent).Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Minor revision, one figure added, accepted for publication in MNRA

Geometrical estimators as a test of Gaussianity in the CMB

We investigate the power of geometrical estimators on detecting non-Gaussianity in the cosmic microwave background. In particular the number, eccentricity and Gaussian curvature of excursion sets above (and below) a threshold are studied. We compare their different performance when applied to non-Gaussian simulated maps of small patches of the sky, which take into account the angular resolution and instrumental noise of the Planck satellite. These non-Gaussian simulations are obtained as perturbations of a Gaussian field in two different ways which introduce a small level of skewness or kurtosis in the distribution. A comparison with a classical estimator, the genus, is also shown. We find that the Gaussian curvature is the best of our estimators in all the considered cases. Therefore we propose the use of this quantity as a particularly useful test to look for non-Gaussianity in the CMB.Comment: 9 pages, 6 postscript figures, submitted to MNRA

The Cosmic Microwave Background: State of the Art

We review the current status of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, including a brief discussion of some basic theoretical aspects as well as a summary of anisotropy detections and CMB experiments. We focus on the description of some relevant characteristics of the microwave foregrounds, on the discussion of the different estimators proposed in the literature to detect non-Gaussianity and on outlining the bases of different reconstruction methods that have been applied to the CMB.Comment: latex file 44 pages + 2 postscript files + 1 gif file; uses elsart.sty; some references and results added; accepted for publication in New Astronomy Review

On the recovery of ISW fluctuations using large-scale structure tracers and CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies

In this work we present a method to extract the signal induced by the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It makes use of the Linear Covariance-Based filter introduced by Barreiro et al., and combines CMB data with any number of large-scale structure (LSS) surveys and lensing information. It also exploits CMB polarization to reduce cosmic variance. The performance of the method has been thoroughly tested with simulations taking into account the impact of non-ideal conditions such as incomplete sky coverage or the presence of noise. In particular, three galaxy surveys are simulated, whose redshift distributions peak at low ($z \simeq 0.3$), intermediate ($z \simeq 0.6$) and high redshift ($z \simeq 0.9$). The contribution of each of the considered data sets as well as the effect of a mask and noise in the reconstructed ISW map is studied in detail. When combining all the considered data sets (CMB temperature and polarization, the three galaxy surveys and the lensing map), the proposed filter successfully reconstructs a map of the weak ISW signal, finding a perfect correlation with the input signal for the ideal case and around 80 per cent, on average, in the presence of noise and incomplete sky coverage. We find that including CMB polarization improves the correlation between input and reconstruction although only at a small level. Nonetheless, given the weakness of the ISW signal, even modest improvements can be of importance. In particular, in realistic situations, in which less information is available from the LSS tracers, the effect of including polarisation is larger. For instance, for the case in which the ISW signal is recovered from CMB plus only one survey, and taking into account the presence of noise and incomplete sky coverage, the improvement in the correlation coefficient can be as large as 10 per cent.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

A linear filter to reconstruct the ISW effect from CMB and LSS observations

The extraction of a signal from some observational data sets that contain different contaminant emissions, often at a greater level than the signal itself, is a common problem in Astrophysics and Cosmology. The signal can be recovered, for instance, using a simple Wiener filter. However, in certain cases, additional information may also be available, such as a second observation which correlates to a certain level with the sought signal. In order to improve the quality of the reconstruction, it would be useful to include as well this additional information. Under these circumstances, we have constructed a linear filter, the linear covariance-based filter, that extracts the signal from the data but takes also into account the correlation with the second observation. To illustrate the performance of the method, we present a simple application to reconstruct the so-called Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect from simulated observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background and of catalogues of galaxies.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processin

A Bayesian approach to filter design: detection of compact sources

We consider filters for the detection and extraction of compact sources on a background. We make a one-dimensional treatment (though a generalization to two or more dimensions is possible) assuming that the sources have a Gaussian profile whereas the background is modeled by an homogeneous and isotropic Gaussian random field, characterized by a scale-free power spectrum. Local peak detection is used after filtering. Then, a Bayesian Generalized Neyman-Pearson test is used to define the region of acceptance that includes not only the amplification but also the curvature of the sources and the a priori probability distribution function of the sources. We search for an optimal filter between a family of Matched-type filters (MTF) modifying the filtering scale such that it gives the maximum number of real detections once fixed the number density of spurious sources. We have performed numerical simulations to test theoretical ideas.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. SPIE Proceedings "Electronic Imaging II", San Jose, CA. January 200

Exploring two-spin internal linear combinations for the recovery of the CMB polarization

We present a methodology to recover cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization in which the quantity $P = Q+ iU$ is linearly combined at different frequencies using complex coefficients. This is the most general linear combination of the $Q$ and $U$ Stokes parameters which preserves the physical coherence of the residual contribution on the CMB estimation. The approach is applied to the internal linear combination (ILC) and the internal template fitting (ITF) methodologies. The variance of $P$ of the resulting map is minimized to compute the coefficients of the linear combination. One of the key aspects of this procedure is that it serves to account for a global frequency-dependent shift of the polarization phase. Although in the standard case, in which no global E-B transference depending on frequency is expected in the foreground components, minimizing $\left\langle |P|^2\right\rangle$ is similar to minimizing $\left\langle Q^2\right\rangle$ and $\left\langle U^2\right\rangle$ separately (as previous methodologies proceed), multiplying $Q$ and $U$ by different coefficients induces arbitrary changes in the polarization angle and it does not preserve the coherence between the spinorial components. The approach is tested on simulations, obtaining a similar residual level with respect to the one obtained with other implementations of the ILC, and perceiving the polarization rotation of a toy model with the frequency dependence of the Faraday rotation.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Integrated Sachs-Wolfe map recovery from NVSS and WMAP 7yr data

We present a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies induced by the late Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect. The map is constructed by combining the information of the WMAP 7-yr CMB data and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) through a linear filter. This combination improves the quality of the map that would be obtained using information only from the Large Scale Structure data. In order to apply the filter, a given cosmological model needs to be assumed. In particular, we consider the standard LCDM model. As a test of consistency, we show that the reconstructed map is in agreemet with the assumed model, which is also favoured against a scenario where no correlation between the CMB and NVSS catalogue is considered.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Minor revision, accepted for publication in MNRA