1,089 research outputs found
The Galactic dust as a foreground to Cosmic Microwave Background maps
We present results obtained with the PRONAOS balloon-borne experiment on
interstellar dust. In particular, the submillimeter / millimeter spectral index
is found to vary between roughly 1 and 2.5 on small scales (3.5' resolution).
This could have implications for component separation in Cosmic Microwave
Background maps.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceeding of the Multi-Wavelength Cosmology
conference held in Mykonos, Greece, June 2003, ed. Kluwe
New insights on the thermal dust from the far-infrared to the centimeter
We present a compilation of PRONAOS-based results concerning the temperature
dependence of the dust submillimeter spectral index, including data from
Galactic cirrus, star-forming regions, dust associated to a young stellar
object, and a spiral galaxy. We observe large variations of the spectral index
(from 0.8 to 2.4) in a wide range of temperatures (11 to 80 K). These spectral
index variations follow a hyperbolic-shaped function of the temperature, high
spectral indices (1.6-2.4) being observed in cold regions (11-20 K) while low
indices (0.8-1.6) are observed in warm regions (35-80 K). Three distinct
effects may play a role in this temperature dependence: one is that the grain
sizes change in dense environments, another is that the chemical composition of
the grains is not the same in different environments, a third one is that there
is an intrinsic dependence of the dust spectral index on the temperature due to
quantum processes. This last effect is backed up by laboratory measurements and
could be the dominant one.
We also briefly present a joint analysis of WMAP dust data together with
COBE/DIRBE and COBE/FIRAS data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the
Cologne-Bonn-Zermatt conference, held in Zermatt, Switzerland, Sept. 2003,
eds: S. Pfalzner, C. Kramer, C. Straubmeier, and A. Heithausen,
Springer-Verla
Scanning strategy for mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies with Planck
We present simulations of different scanning strategies for the Planck
satellite. We review the properties of slow- and fast-precession strategies in
terms of uniformity of the integration time on the sky, the presence of
low-redundancy areas, the presence of deep fields, the presence of sharp
gradients in the integration time, and the redundancy of the scanning
directions. We also compare the results obtained when co-adding all detectors
of a given frequency channel. The slow-precession strategies allow a good
uniformity of the coverage, while providing two deep fields. On the other hand,
they do not allow a wide spread of the scan-crossing directions, which is a
feature of the fast-precession strategies. However, the latter suffer from many
sharp gradients and low-coverage areas on the sky. On the basis of these
results, the strategy for Planck can be selected to be a slow (e.g. 4
month-period) sinusoidal or cycloidal scanning.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, accepted in A&A. Degraded JPEG figure
The complete submillimetre spectrum of NGC 891
Submillimetre maps of NGC 891 have been obtained with the PRONAOS
balloon-borne telescope and with the ISOPHOT instrument on board the ISO
satellite. In this article, we also gather data from IRAS and SCUBA to present
the complete submillimetre spectrum of this nearby edge-on spiral galaxy. We
derive submillimetre emission profiles along the major axis. The modified
blackbody fits, assuming a single dust component, lead to temperatures of 19-24
K toward the centre and 18-20 K toward the edges, with possible variations of
the dust spectral index from 1.4 to 2. The two-component fits lead to a warm
component temperature of 29 K all along the galaxy with a cold component at 16
K. The interstellar medium masses derived by these two methods are quite
different: 4.6 x 10^9 Mo in the case of the one-component model and 12 x 10^9
Mo in the case of the two-component one. This two-component fit indicates that
the cold dust to warm dust ratio is 20 to 40, the highest values being in the
wings of this galaxy. Comparing to dust mass estimates, both estimations of the
ISM mass are consistent with a gas to dust mass ratio of 240, which is close to
the Milky Way value. Our results illustrate the importance of accurate
submillimetre spectra to derive masses of the interstellar medium in galaxies.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted May 2003 in the MNRA
Submillimeter mapping and analysis of cold dust condensations in the Orion M42 star forming complex
We present here the continuum submillimeter maps of the molecular cloud
around the M42 Nebula in the Orion region. These have been obtained in four
wavelength bands (200, 260, 360 and 580 microns) with the ProNaOS two meter
balloon-borne telescope. The area covered is 7 parsecs wide (50 arcmin at a
distance of 470 pc) with a spatial resolution of about 0.4 parsec. Thanks to
the high sensitivity to faint surface brightness gradients, we have found
several cold condensations with temperatures ranging from 12 to 17 K, within 3
parsecs of the dense ridge. The statistical analysis of the temperature and
spectral index spatial distribution shows an evidence of an inverse correlation
between these two parameters. Being invisible in the IRAS 100 micron survey,
some cold clouds are likely to be the seeds for future star formation activity
going on in the complex. We estimate their masses and we show that two of them
have masses higher than their Jeans masses, and may be gravitationally
unstable.Comment: 4 figures, The Astrophysical Journal, Main Journal, in pres
Inverse temperature dependence of the dust submillimeter spectral index
We present a compilation of PRONAOS-based results concerning the temperature
dependence of the dust submillimeter spectral index, including data from
Galactic cirrus, star-forming regions, dust associated to a young stellar
object, and a spiral galaxy. We observe large variations of the spectral index
(from 0.8 to 2.4) in a wide range of temperatures (11 to 80 K). These spectral
index variations follow a hyperbolic-shaped function of the temperature, high
spectral indices (1.6-2.4) being observed in cold regions (11-20 K) while low
indices (0.8-1.6) are observed in warm regions (35-80 K). Three distinct
effects may play a role in this temperature dependence: one is that the grain
sizes change in dense environments, another is that the chemical composition of
the grains is not the same in different environments, a third one is that there
is an intrinsic dependence of the dust spectral index on the temperature due to
quantum processes. This last effect is backed up by laboratory measurements and
could be the dominant one.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Letter accepted April 2003 in A&
The Flexible Planck Scanning Strategy
Abstract. A key issue for the success of the P ESA mission is the planning of a proper scanning strategy able to ensure a good sky coverage and optimal instrument operations. The scanning strategy is characterized by the way in which the telescope will scan the sky. Repointing manoeuvres will allow a complete mapping of the sky in about six-seven months. Different scanning strategies deal with the rate of repointing manoeuvres and the long term motion of the spin axis. We present here some of the main aspects and of the most relevant results of recent analyses aimed at defining the P baseline scanning strategy
Some doubts on the validity of the foreground Galactic contribution subtraction from microwave anisotropies
The Galactic foreground contamination in CMBR anisotropies, especially from
the dust component, is not easily separable from the cosmological or
extragalactic component. In this paper, some doubts will be raised concerning
the validity of the methods used to date to remove Galactic dust emission in
order to show that none of them achieves its goal.
First, I review the recent bibliography on the topic and discuss critically
the methods of foreground subtraction: the cross-correlation with templates,
analysis assuming the spectral shape of the Galactic components, the "maximum
entropy method", "internal linear combination", and "wavelet-based high
resolution fitting of internal templates". Second, I analyse the galactic
latitude dependence from WMAP data. The frequency dependence is discussed with
the data in the available literature. The result is that all methods of
subtracting the Galactic contamination are inaccurate. The galactic latitude
dependence analysis or the frequency dependence of the anisotropies in the
range 50-250 GHz put a constraint on the maximum Galactic contribution in the
power spectrum to be less than a ~10% (68% C. L.) for a ~1 degree scale, and
possibly higher for larger scales.
The origin of most of the signal in the CMBR anisotropies is not Galactic. In
any case, the subtraction of the Galaxy is not accurate enough to allow a
"precision Cosmology"; other sources of contamination (extragalactic, solar
system) are also present.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, accepted to be published in J. Astrophys. Ast
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