787 research outputs found
High precision simulations of weak lensing effect on Cosmic Microwave Background polarization
We study accuracy, robustness and self-consistency of pixel-domain
simulations of the gravitational lensing effect on the primordial CMB
anisotropies due to the large-scale structure of the Universe. In particular,
we investigate dependence of the results precision on some crucial parameters
of such techniques and propose a semi-analytic framework to determine their
values so the required precision is a priori assured and the numerical workload
simultaneously optimized. Our focus is on the B-mode signal but we discuss also
other CMB observables, such as total intensity, T, and E-mode polarization,
emphasizing differences and similarities between all these cases. Our
semi-analytic considerations are backed up by extensive numerical results.
Those are obtained using a code, nicknamed lenS2HAT -- for Lensing using
Scalable Spherical Harmonic Transforms (S2HAT) -- which we have developed in
the course of this work. The code implements a version of the pixel-domain
approach of Lewis (2005) and permits performing the simulations at very high
resolutions and data volumes, thanks to its efficient parallelization provided
by the S2HAT library -- a parallel library for a calculation of the spherical
harmonic transforms. The code is made publicly available.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, submitted to A&A, matches version accepted for
publication in A&
Astrophysical foregrounds and primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio constraints from CMB B-mode polarization observations
We study the effects of astrophysical foregrounds on the ability of CMB
B-mode polarization experiments to constrain the primordial tensor-to-scalar
ratio, r. To clean the foreground contributions we use parametric, maximum
likelihood component separation technique, and consider experimental setups
optimized to render a minimal level of the foreground residuals in the
recovered CMB map. We consider nearly full-sky observations, include two
diffuse foreground components, dust and synchrotron, and study cases with and
without calibration errors, spatial variability of the foreground properties,
and partial or complete B-mode lensing signal removal.
In all these cases we find that in the limit of very low noise level and in
the absence of the intrumental or modeling systematic effects, the foreground
residuals do not lead to a limit on the lowest detectable value of r. But the
need to control the foreground residuals will play a major role in determining
the minimal noise levels necessary to permit a robust detection of r < 0.1 and
therefore in optimizing and forecasting the performance of the future missions.
For current and proposed experiments noise levels, the foreground residuals are
found non-negligible and potentially can affect our ability to set constraints
on r. We also show how the constraints can be significantly improved on by
restricting the post component separation processing to a smaller sky area.
This procedure applied to a case of a COrE-like satellite mission is shown to
result potentially in over an order of magnitude improvement in the detectable
value of r. With sufficient knowledge of the experimental bandpasses as well as
foreground component scaling laws, our conclusions are found to be independent
on the assumed overall normalization of the foregrounds and only quantitatively
depend on specific parametrizations assumed for the foreground components.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Accelerating Cosmic Microwave Background map-making procedure through preconditioning
Estimation of the sky signal from sequences of time ordered data is one of
the key steps in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data analysis, commonly
referred to as the map-making problem. Some of the most popular and general
methods proposed for this problem involve solving generalised least squares
(GLS) equations with non-diagonal noise weights given by a block-diagonal
matrix with Toeplitz blocks. In this work we study new map-making solvers
potentially suitable for applications to the largest anticipated data sets.
They are based on iterative conjugate gradient (CG) approaches enhanced with
novel, parallel, two-level preconditioners. We apply the proposed solvers to
examples of simulated non-polarised and polarised CMB observations, and a set
of idealised scanning strategies with sky coverage ranging from nearly a full
sky down to small sky patches. We discuss in detail their implementation for
massively parallel computational platforms and their performance for a broad
range of parameters characterising the simulated data sets. We find that our
best new solver can outperform carefully-optimised standard solvers used today
by a factor of as much as 5 in terms of the convergence rate and a factor of up
to in terms of the time to solution, and to do so without significantly
increasing the memory consumption and the volume of inter-processor
communication. The performance of the new algorithms is also found to be more
stable and robust, and less dependent on specific characteristics of the
analysed data set. We therefore conclude that the proposed approaches are well
suited to address successfully challenges posed by new and forthcoming CMB data
sets.Comment: 19 pages // Final version submitted to A&
Tentative Appraisal of Compatibility of Small-Scale CMB Anisotropy Detections in the Context of COBE-DMR-Normalized Open and Flat CDM Cosmogonies
Goodness-of-fit statistics are used to quantitatively establish the
compatibility of CMB anisotropy predictions in a wide range of DMR-normalized,
open and spatially-flat , CDM cosmogonies with the set of all
presently available small-scale CMB anisotropy detection data. Conclusions
regarding model viability depend sensitively on the prescription used to
account for the 1 uncertainty in the assumed value of the DMR
normalization, except for low-density, -- 0.4, open models
which are compatible with the data for all prescriptions used. While large
baryon-density (\Omega_B \gap 0.0175 h^{-2}), old (t_0 \gap 15 -- 16 Gyr),
low-density ( -- 0.4), flat- models might be
incompatible, no model is incompatible with the data for all prescriptions. In
fact, some open models seem to fit the data better than should be expected, and
this might be an indication that some error bars are mildly overconservative.Comment: 15 page PostScript file, including 6 included figures. Also available
via anonymous ftp from ftp://astro.caltech.edu/users/kmg/chi.p
Spherical harmonic transform with GPUs
We describe an algorithm for computing an inverse spherical harmonic
transform suitable for graphic processing units (GPU). We use CUDA and base our
implementation on a Fortran90 routine included in a publicly available parallel
package, S2HAT. We focus our attention on the two major sequential steps
involved in the transforms computation, retaining the efficient parallel
framework of the original code. We detail optimization techniques used to
enhance the performance of the CUDA-based code and contrast them with those
implemented in the Fortran90 version. We also present performance comparisons
of a single CPU plus GPU unit with the S2HAT code running on either a single or
4 processors. In particular we find that use of the latest generation of GPUs,
such as NVIDIA GF100 (Fermi), can accelerate the spherical harmonic transforms
by as much as 18 times with respect to S2HAT executed on one core, and by as
much as 5.5 with respect to S2HAT on 4 cores, with the overall performance
being limited by the Fast Fourier transforms. The work presented here has been
performed in the context of the Cosmic Microwave Background simulations and
analysis. However, we expect that the developed software will be of more
general interest and applicability
Python I, II, and III CMB Anisotropy Measurement Constraints on Open and Flat-Lambda CDM Cosmogonies
We use Python I, II, and III cosmic microwave background anisotropy data to
constrain cosmogonies. We account for the Python beamwidth and calibration
uncertainties. We consider open and spatially-flat-Lambda cold dark matter
cosmogonies, with nonrelativistic-mass density parameter Omega_0 in the range
0.1--1, baryonic-mass density parameter Omega_B in the range (0.005--0.029)
h^{-2}, and age of the universe t_0 in the range (10--20) Gyr. Marginalizing
over all parameters but Omega_0, the combined Python data favors an open
(spatially-flat-Lambda) model with Omega_0 simeq 0.2 (0.1). At the 2 sigma
confidence level model normalizations deduced from the combined Python data are
mostly consistent with those drawn from the DMR, UCSB South Pole 1994, ARGO,
MAX 4 and 5, White Dish, and SuZIE data sets.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Ap
Iterative destriping and photometric calibration for Planck-HFI, polarized, multi-detector map-making
We present an iterative scheme designed to recover calibrated I, Q, and U
maps from Planck-HFI data using the orbital dipole due to the satellite motion
with respect to the Solar System frame. It combines a map reconstruction, based
on a destriping technique, juxtaposed with an absolute calibration algorithm.
We evaluate systematic and statistical uncertainties incurred during both these
steps with the help of realistic, Planck-like simulations containing CMB,
foreground components and instrumental noise, and assess the accuracy of the
sky map reconstruction by considering the maps of the residuals and their
spectra. In particular, we discuss destriping residuals for polarization
sensitive detectors similar to those of Planck-HFI under different noise
hypotheses and show that these residuals are negligible (for intensity maps) or
smaller than the white noise level (for Q and U Stokes maps), for l > 50. We
also demonstrate that the combined level of residuals of this scheme remains
comparable to those of the destriping-only case except at very low l where
residuals from the calibration appear. For all the considered noise hypotheses,
the relative calibration precision is on the order of a few 10e-4, with a
systematic bias of the same order of magnitude.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures. Match published versio
Accelerating Cosmic Microwave Background map-making procedure through preconditioning
Estimation of the sky signal from sequences of time ordered data is one of
the key steps in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data analysis, commonly
referred to as the map-making problem. Some of the most popular and general
methods proposed for this problem involve solving generalised least squares
(GLS) equations with non-diagonal noise weights given by a block-diagonal
matrix with Toeplitz blocks. In this work we study new map-making solvers
potentially suitable for applications to the largest anticipated data sets.
They are based on iterative conjugate gradient (CG) approaches enhanced with
novel, parallel, two-level preconditioners. We apply the proposed solvers to
examples of simulated non-polarised and polarised CMB observations, and a set
of idealised scanning strategies with sky coverage ranging from nearly a full
sky down to small sky patches. We discuss in detail their implementation for
massively parallel computational platforms and their performance for a broad
range of parameters characterising the simulated data sets. We find that our
best new solver can outperform carefully-optimised standard solvers used today
by a factor of as much as 5 in terms of the convergence rate and a factor of up
to in terms of the time to solution, and to do so without significantly
increasing the memory consumption and the volume of inter-processor
communication. The performance of the new algorithms is also found to be more
stable and robust, and less dependent on specific characteristics of the
analysed data set. We therefore conclude that the proposed approaches are well
suited to address successfully challenges posed by new and forthcoming CMB data
sets.Comment: 19 pages // Final version submitted to A&
ARGO CMB Anisotropy Measurement Constraints on Open and Flat-Lambda CDM Cosmogonies
We use data from the ARGO cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy
experiment to constrain cosmogonies. We account for the ARGO beamwidth and
calibration uncertainties, and marginalize over the offset removed from the
data. Our derived amplitudes of the CMB anisotropy detected by the ARGO
experiment are smaller than those derived previously.
We consider open and spatially-flat-Lambda cold dark matter cosmogonies, with
clustered-mass density parameter Omega_0 in the range 0.1-1, baryonic-mass
density parameter Omega_B in the range (0.005-0.029)h^{-2}, and age of the
universe t_0 in the range (10--20) Gyr. Marginalizing over all parameters but
Omega_0, the ARGO data favors an open (spatially-flat-Lambda) model with
Omega_0= 0.23 (0.1). However, these numerical values are model dependent.
At the 2 sigma confidence level model normalizations deduced from the ARGO
data are consistent with those drawn from the UCSB South Pole 1994, MAX 4+5,
White Dish, and SuZIE data sets. The ARGO open model normalizations are also
consistent with those deduced from the DMR data. However, for most
spatially-flat-Lambda models the DMR normalizations are more than 2 sigma above
the ARGO ones.Comment: 21 pages of latex. Uses aaspp4.sty. 8 figures included. ApJ in pres
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