Parameter Estimation from Improved Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background from QUaD

We evaluate the contribution of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization spectra to cosmological parameter constraints. We produce cosmological parameters using high-quality CMB polarization data from the ground-based QUaD experiment and demonstrate for the majority of parameters that there is significant improvement on the constraints obtained from satellite CMB polarization data. We split a multi-experiment CMB data set into temperature and polarization subsets and show that the best-fit confidence regions for the ΛCDM six-parameter cosmological model are consistent with each other, and that polarization data reduces the confidence regions on all parameters. We provide the best limits on parameters from QUaD EE/BB polarization data and we find best-fit parameters from the multi-experiment CMB data set using the optimal pivot scale of k_p = 0.013 Mpc^(–1) to be {h^2Ω_c, h^2Ω_b, H_0, A_s, n_s, τ} = {0.113, 0.0224, 70.6, 2.29 × 10^(–9), 0.960, 0.086}

The Next Generation of the Montage Image Mosaic Toolkit

The scientific computing landscape has evolved dramatically in the past few years, with new schemes for organizing and storing data that reflect the growth in size and complexity of astronomical data sets. In response to this changing landscape, we are, over the next two years, deploying the next generation of the Montage toolkit ([ascl:1010.036]). The first release (October 2015) supports multi-dimensional data sets ("data cubes"), and insertion of XMP/AVM tags that allows images to "drop-in" to the WWT. The same release offers a beta-version of web-based interactive visualization of images; this includes wrappers for visualization in Python. Subsequent releases will support HEALPix (now standard in cosmic background experiments); incorporation of Montage into package managers (which enable automated management of software builds), and support for a library that will enable Montage to be called directly from Python. This next generation toolkit will inherit the architectural benefits of the current engine - component based tools, ANSI-C portability across Unix platforms and scalability for distributed processing. With the expanded functionality under development, Montage can be viewed not simply as a mosaic engine, but as a scalable, portable toolkit for managing, organizing and processing images

Planck intermediate results XXVIII. Interstellar gas and dust in the Chamaeleon clouds as seen by Fermi LAT and Planck

The nearby Chamaeleon clouds have been observed in rays by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and in thermal dust emission by Planck and IRAS. Cosmic rays and large dust grains, if smoothly mixed with gas, can jointly serve with the Hi and ^(12)CO radio data to (i) map the hydrogen column densities, NH, in the different gas phases, in particular at the dark neutral medium (DNM) transition between the Hi-bright and CO-bright media; (ii) constrain the CO-to-H_2 conversion factor, XCO; and (iii) probe the dust properties per gas nucleon in each phase and map their spatial variations across the clouds. We have separated clouds at local, intermediate, and Galactic velocities in Hi and ^(12)CO line emission to model in parallel the -ray intensity recorded between 0.4 and 100 GeV; the dust optical depth at 353 GHz, τ_(353); the thermal radiance of the large grains; and an estimate of the dust extinction, A_(VQ), empirically corrected for the starlight intensity. The dust and -ray models have been coupled to account for the DNM gas. The consistent -ray emissivity spectra recorded in the different phases confirm that the GeV–TeV cosmic rays probed by the LAT uniformly permeate all gas phases up to the ^(12)CO cores. The dust and cosmic rays both reveal large amounts of DNM gas, with comparable spatial distributions and twice as much mass as in the CO-bright clouds. We give constraints on the Hi-DNM-CO transitions for five separate clouds. CO-dark H_2 dominates the molecular columns up to A_V ≃ 0.9 and its mass often exceeds the one-third of the molecular mass expected by theory. The corrected A_(VQ) extinction largely provides the best fit to the total gas traced by the rays. Nevertheless, we find evidence for a marked rise in A_(VQ)=N_H with increasing N_H and molecular fraction, and with decreasing dust temperature. The rise in τ_(353)=N_H is even steeper. We observe variations of lesser amplitude and orderliness for the specific power of the grains, except for a coherent decline by half in the CO cores. This combined information suggests grain evolution. We provide average values for the dust properties per gas nucleon in the different phases. The rays and dust radiance yield consistent XCO estimates near 0.7 x 10^(20) cm^(-2) K^(-1) km^(-1) s. The AVQ and τ_(353) tracers yield biased values because of the large rise in grain opacity in the CO clouds. These results clarify a recurrent disparity in the -ray versus dust calibration of X_(CO), but they confirm the factor of 2 difference found between the X_(CO) estimates in nearby clouds and in the neighbouring spiral arms

Planck intermediate results. XVII. Emission of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium from the far-infrared to microwave frequencies

The dust-Hi correlation is used to characterize the emission properties of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) from far infrared wavelengths to microwave frequencies. The field of this investigation encompasses the part of the southern sky best suited to study the cosmic infrared and microwave backgrounds. We cross-correlate sky maps from Planck, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and the diffuse infrared background experiment (DIRBE), at 17 frequencies from 23 to 3000 GHz, with the Parkes survey of the 21 cm line emission of neutral atomic hydrogen, over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 centred on the southern Galactic pole. We present a general methodology to study the dust-Hi correlation over the sky, including simulations to quantify uncertainties. Our analysis yields four specific results. (1) We map the temperature, submillimetre emissivity, and opacity of the dust per H-atom. The dust temperature is observed to be anti-correlated with the dust emissivity and opacity. We interpret this result as evidence of dust evolution within the diffuse ISM. The mean dust opacity is measured to be (7.1 ± 0.6) × 10^(-27) cm^2 H^(-1) × (ν/ 353 GHz)^(1.53 ± 0.03) for 100 ≤ ν ≤ 353 GHz. This is a reference value to estimate hydrogen column densities from dust emission at submillimetre and millimetre wavelengths. (2) We map the spectral index βmm of dust emission at millimetre wavelengths (defined here as ν ≤ 353 GHz), and find it to be remarkably constant at β_(mm) = 1.51 ± 0.13. We compare it with the far infrared spectral index β_(FIR) derived from greybody fits at higher frequencies, and find a systematic difference, β_(mm) – β_(FIR) = − 0.15, which suggests that the dust spectral energy distribution (SED) flattens at ν ≤ 353 GHz. (3) We present spectral fits of the microwave emission correlated with Hi from 23 to 353 GHz, which separate dust and anomalous microwave emission (AME). We show that the flattening of the dust SED can be accounted for with an additional component with a blackbody spectrum. This additional component, which accounts for (26 ± 6)% of the dust emission at 100 GHz, could represent magnetic dipole emission. Alternatively, it could account for an increasing contribution of carbon dust, or a flattening of the emissivity of amorphous silicates, at millimetre wavelengths. These interpretations make different predictions for the dust polarization SED. (4) We analyse the residuals of the dust-Hi correlation. We identify a Galactic contribution to these residuals, which we model with variations of the dust emissivity on angular scales smaller than that of our correlation analysis. This model of the residuals is used to quantify uncertainties of the CIB power spectrum in a companion Planck paper

Planck intermediate results. XLI. A map of lensing-induced B-modes

The secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-modes stem from the post-decoupling distortion of the polarization E-modes due to the gravitational lensing effect of large-scale structures. These lensing-induced B-modes constitute both a valuable probe of the dark matter distribution and an important contaminant for the extraction of the primary CMB B-modes from inflation. Planck provides accurate nearly all-sky measurements of both the polarization E-modes and the integrated mass distribution via the reconstruction of the CMB lensing potential. By combining these two data products, we have produced an all-sky template map of the lensing-induced B-modes using a real-space algorithm that minimizes the impact of sky masks. The cross-correlation of this template with an observed (primordial and secondary) B-mode map can be used to measure the lensing B-mode power spectrum at multipoles up to 2000. In particular, when cross-correlating with the B-mode contribution directly derived from the Planck polarization maps, we obtain lensing-induced B-mode power spectrum measurement at a significance level of 12σ, which agrees with the theoretical expectation derived from the Planck best-fit Λ cold dark matter model. This unique nearly all-sky secondary B-mode template, which includes the lensing-induced information from intermediate to small (10 ≲ ℓ ≲ 1000) angular scales, is delivered as part of the Planck 2015 public data release. It will be particularly useful for experiments searching for primordial B-modes, such as BICEP2/Keck Array or LiteBIRD, since it will enable an estimate to be made of the lensing-induced contribution to the measured total CMB B-modes