348 research outputs found
Spatial variations in the spectral index of polarized synchrotron emission in the 9 yr WMAP sky maps
We estimate the spectral index, beta, of polarized synchrotron emission as
observed in the 9 yr WMAP sky maps using two methods, linear regression ("T-T
plot") and maximum likelihood. We partition the sky into 24 disjoint sky
regions, and evaluate the spectral index for all polarization angles between 0
deg and 85 deg in steps of 5. Averaging over polarization angles, we derive a
mean spectral index of beta_all-sky=-2.99+-0.01 in the frequency range of 23-33
GHz. We find that the synchrotron spectral index steepens by 0.14 from low to
high Galactic latitudes, in agreement with previous studies, with mean spectral
indices of beta_plane=-2.98+-0.01 and beta_high-lat=-3.12+-0.04. In addition,
we find a significant longitudinal variation along the Galactic plane with a
steeper spectral index toward the Galactic center and anticenter than toward
the Galactic spiral arms. This can be well modeled by an offset sinusoidal,
beta(l)=-2.85+0.17sin(2l-90). Finally, we study synchrotron emission in the
BICEP2 field, in an attempt to understand whether the claimed detection of
large-scale B-mode polarization could be explained in terms of synchrotron
contamination. Adopting a spectral index of beta=-3.12, typical for high
Galactic latitudes, we find that the most likely bias corresponds to about 2%
of the reported signal (r=0.003). The flattest index allowed by the data in
this region is beta=-2.5, and under the assumption of a straight power-law
frequency spectrum, we find that synchrotron emission can account for at most
20% of the reported BICEP2 signal.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, updated to match version published in Ap
Sensitivity and foreground modelling for large-scale CMB B-mode polarization satellite missions
The measurement of the large-scale B-mode polarization in the cosmic
microwave background (CMB) is a fundamental goal of future CMB experiments.
However, because of unprecedented sensitivity, future CMB experiments will be
much more sensitive to any imperfect modelling of the Galactic foreground
polarization in the reconstruction of the primordial B-mode signal. We compare
the sensitivity to B-modes of different concepts of CMB satellite missions
(LiteBIRD, COrE, COrE+, PRISM, EPIC, PIXIE) in the presence of Galactic
foregrounds. In particular, we quantify the impact on the tensor-to-scalar
parameter of incorrect foreground modelling in the component separation
process. Using Bayesian fitting and Gibbs sampling, we perform the separation
of the CMB and Galactic foreground B-modes. The recovered CMB B-mode power
spectrum is used to compute the likelihood distribution of the tensor-to-scalar
ratio. We focus the analysis to the very large angular scales that can be
probed only by CMB space missions, i.e. the Reionization bump, where primordial
B-modes dominate over spurious B-modes induced by gravitational lensing. We
find that fitting a single modified blackbody component for thermal dust where
the "real" sky consists of two dust components strongly bias the estimation of
the tensor-to-scalar ratio by more than 5{\sigma} for the most sensitive
experiments. Neglecting in the parametric model the curvature of the
synchrotron spectral index may bias the estimated tensor-to-scalar ratio by
more than 1{\sigma}. For sensitive CMB experiments, omitting in the foreground
modelling a 1% polarized spinning dust component may induce a non-negligible
bias in the estimated tensor-to-scalar ratio.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables. Updated to match version accepted by
MNRA
Electromagnetic Casimir energy with extra dimensions
We calculate the energy-momentum tensor due to electromagnetic vacuum
fluctuations between two parallel hyperplanes in more than four dimensions,
considering both metallic and MIT boundary conditions. Using the axial gauge,
the problem can be mapped upon the corresponding problem with a massless,
scalar field satisfying respectively Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions.
The pressure between the plates is constant while the energy density is found
to diverge at the boundaries when there are extra dimensions. This can be
related to the fact that Maxwell theory is then no longer conformally
invariant. A similar behavior is known for the scalar field where a constant
energy density consistent with the pressure can be obtained by improving the
energy-momentum tensor with the Huggins term. This is not possible for the
Maxwell field. However, the change in the energy-momentum tensor with distance
between boundaries is finite in all cases.Comment: 16 pages, typos corrected, published versio
The Effect of Asymmetric Beams in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Experiment
We generate simulations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature field as observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, taking into account the detailed shape of the asymmetric beams and scanning strategy of the experiment, and use these to re-estimate the WMAP beam transfer functions. This method avoids the need of artificially symmetrizing the beams, as done in the baseline WMAP approach, and instead measures the total convolution effect by direct simulation. We find only small differences with respect to the nominal transfer functions, typically less than 1% everywhere, and less than 0.5% at ℓ < 400. The net effect on the CMB power spectrum is less than 0.6%. The effect on all considered cosmological parameters is negligible. For instance, we find that the spectral index of scalar perturbations after taking into account the beam asymmetries is n_s = 0.964 ± 0.014, corresponding to a negative shift of –0.1σ compared to the previously released WMAP results. Our CMB sky simulations are made publicly available and can be used for general studies of asymmetric beam effects in the WMAP data
The effect of systematics on polarized spectral indices
We study four particularly bright polarized compact objects (Tau A, Virgo A,
3C273 and Fornax A) in the 7-year WMAP sky maps, with the goal of understanding
potential systematics involved in estimation of foreground spectral indices. We
estimate the spectral index, the polarization angle, the polarization fraction
and apparent size and shape of these objects when smoothed to a nominal
resolution of 1 degree FWHM. Second, we compute the spectral index as a
function of polarization orientation, alpha. Because these objects are
approximately point sources with constant polarization angle, this function
should be constant in the absence of systematics. However, computing it for the
K- and Ka-band WMAP data we find strong index variations for all four sources.
For Tau A, we find a spectral index beta=-2.59+-0.03 for alpha=30 degrees, and
beta=-2.03+-0.01 for alpha=50 degrees. On the other hand, the spectral index
between Ka and Q band is found to be stable. A simple elliptical Gaussian toy
model with parameters matching those observed in Tau A reproduces the observed
signal, and shows that the spectral index is in particular sensitive to the
detector polarization angle. Based on these findings, we first conclude that
estimation of spectral indices with the WMAP K-band polarization data at 1
degree scales is not robust. Second, we note that these issues may be of
concern for ground-based and sub-orbital experiments that use the WMAP
polarization measurements of Tau A for calibration of gain and polarization
angles.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ; new figure and expanded
conclusio
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