Point sources in the MAP sky maps

Abstract

We discuss point sources foregrounds for the MAP experiment. We consider several possible strategies for removing them and we assess how the statistics of the CMB signal are affected by the residual sources. Assuming a power law distribution for the point sources, we propose a method aimed to determine the slope of the distribution from the analysis of the moments of the observed maps. The same method allows for a determination of the underlying CMB variance. We conclude that the best strategy for point sources finding is the simultaneous thresholding of the filtered map at all frequencies, with a relatively low threshold. With this strategy, we expect to find 70 (95)% of the sources above 3 (4) $\sigma$. Assuming the most conservative case for point sources detection, the recovered slope of the point sources distribution is $2.55 \pm 0.15$, for a fiducial $n=2.5$ value. The recovered CMB pus noise map variance is within 0.2% from the real one, with a standard deviation of $0.31$, while Cosmic variance contributes 2.2% to the same CMB plus noise map.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Ap