355 research outputs found
Some Good Reasons to Use Matched Filters for the Detection of Point Sources in CMB Maps
In this draft we comment on the results concerning the performances of
matched filters, scale adaptive filters and Mexican hat wavelet that recently
appeared in literature in the context of point source detection in Cosmic
Microwave Background maps. In particular, we show that, contrary to what has
been claimed, the use of the matched filters still appear to be the most
reliable and efficient method to disantangle point sources from the
backgrounds, even when using detection criterion that, differently from the
classic thresholding rule, takes into account not only the height of
the peaks in the signal corresponding to the candidate sources but also their
curvature.Comment: Replacement after submission to A&A and referee's comments. Astronomy
and Astrophysics, in press, JNL/2003/473
Detection of new point-sources in WMAP Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) maps at high Galactic latitude. A new technique to extract point sources from CMB maps
In experimental microwave maps, point-sources can strongly affect the
estimation of the power-spectrum and/or the test of Gaussianity of the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) component. As a consequence, their removal from the
sky maps represents a critical step in the analysis of the CMB data. Before
removing a source, however, it is necessary to detect it and source extraction
consists of a delicate preliminary operation. In the literature, various
techniques have been presented to detect point-sources in the sky maps. The
most sophisticated ones exploit the multi-frequency nature of the observations
that is typical of the CMB experiments. These techniques have "optimal"
theoretical properties and, at least in principle, are capable of remarkable
performances. Actually, they are rather difficult to use and this deteriorates
the quality of the obtainable results. In this paper, we present a new
technique, the "weighted matched filter" (WMF), that is quite simple to use and
hence more robust in practical applications. Such technique shows particular
efficiency in the detection of sources whose spectra have a slope different
from zero. We apply this method to three Southern Hemisphere sky regions - each
with an area of 400 square degrees - of the seven years Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) maps and compare the resulting sources with those of
the two seven-year WMAP point-sources catalogues. In these selected regions we
find seven additional sources not previously listed in WMAP catalogues and
discuss their most likely identification and spectral properties.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2011, in pres
On Optimal Detection of Point Sources in CMB Maps
Point-source contamination in high-precision Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) maps severely affects the precision of cosmological parameter estimates.
Among the methods that have been proposed for source detection, wavelet
techniques based on ``optimal'' filters have been proposed.In this paper we
show that these filters are in fact only restrictive cases of a more general
class of matched filters that optimize signal-to-noise ratio and that have, in
general, better source detection capabilities, especially for lower amplitude
sources. These conclusions are confirmed by some numerical experiments.
\keywords{Methods: data analysis -- Methods: statisticalComment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Unevenly-sampled signals: a general formalism of the Lomb-Scargle periodogram
The periodogram is a popular tool that tests whether a signal consists only
of noise or if it also includes other components. The main issue of this method
is to define a critical detection threshold that allows identification of a
component other than noise, when a peak in the periodogram exceeds it. In the
case of signals sampled on a regular time grid, determination of such a
threshold is relatively simple. When the sampling is uneven, however, things
are more complicated. The most popular solution in this case is to use the
"Lomb-Scargle" periodogram, but this method can be used only when the noise is
the realization of a zero-mean, white (i.e. flat-spectrum) random process. In
this paper, we present a general formalism based on matrix algebra, which
permits analysis of the statistical properties of a periodogram independently
of the characteristics of noise (e.g. colored and/or non-stationary), as well
as the characteristics of sampling.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres
Ly-alpha forest: efficient unbiased estimation of second-order properties with missing data
Context. One important step in the statistical analysis of the Ly-alpha
forest data is the study of their second order properties. Usually, this is
accomplished by means of the two-point correlation function or, alternatively,
the K-function. In the computation of these functions it is necessary to take
into account the presence of strong metal line complexes and strong Ly-alpha
lines that can hidden part of the Ly-alpha forest and represent a non
negligible source of bias. Aims. In this work, we show quantitatively what are
the effects of the gaps introduced in the spectrum by the strong lines if they
are not properly accounted for in the computation of the correlation
properties. We propose a geometric method which is able to solve this problem
and is computationally more efficient than the Monte Carlo (MC) technique that
is typically adopted in Cosmology studies. The method is implemented in two
different algorithms. The first one permits to obtain exact results, whereas
the second one provides approximated results but is computationally very
efficient. The proposed approach can be easily extended to deal with the case
of two or more lists of lines that have to be analyzed at the same time.
Methods. Numerical experiments are presented that illustrate the consequences
to neglect the effects due to the strong lines and the excellent performances
of the proposed approach. Results. The proposed method is able to remarkably
improve the estimates of both the two-point correlation function and the
K-function.Comment: A&A accepted, 12 pages, 15 figure
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