No Arabic abstract
We present an estimate of the polarized spectral index between the Planck 30 and 44 GHz surveys in $3.7^circ$ pixels across the entire sky. We use an objective reference prior that maximises the impact of the data on the posterior and multiply this by a maximum entropy prior that includes information from observations in total intensity by assuming a polarization fraction. Our parametrization of the problem allows the reference prior to be easily determined and also provides a natural method of including prior information. The spectral index map is consistent with those found by others between surveys at similar frequencies. Across the entire sky we find an average temperature spectral index of $-2.99pm0.03(pm1.12)$ where the first error term is the statistical uncertainty on the mean and the second error term (in parentheses) is the extra intrinsic scatter in the data. We use a clustering algorithm to identify pixels with actual detections of the spectral index. The average spectral index in these pixels is $-3.12pm0.03(pm0.64)$ and then when also excluding pixels within $10^circ$ of the Galactic plane we find $-2.92(pm0.03)$. We find a statistically significant difference between the average spectral indices in the North and South Fermi bubbles. Only including pixels identified by the clustering algorithm, the average spectral index in the southern bubble is $-3.00pm0.05(pm0.35)$, which is similar to the average across the whole sky. In the northern bubble we find a much harder average spectral index of $-2.36pm0.09(pm0.63)$. Therefore, if the bubbles are features in microwave polarization they are not symmetric about the Galactic plane.
We constrain polarized foreground emission between 30 and 70GHz with the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) and WMAP data within the framework of BeyondPlanck global Bayesian analysis. We combine for the first time full-resolution Planck LFI time-ordered data with low-resolution WMAP sky maps at 33, 40 and 61GHz. Spectral parameters are fit with a likelihood defined at the native resolution of each frequency channel. This analysis represents the first implementation of true multi-resolution component separation applied to CMB observations for both amplitude and spectral energy distribution (SED) parameters. For synchrotron emission, we approximate the SED as a power-law in frequency and find that the low signal-to-noise ratio of the data set strongly limits the number of free parameters that may be robustly constrained. We partition the sky into four large disjoint regions (High Latitude; Galactic Spur; Galactic Plane; and Galactic Center), each associated with its own power-law index. We find that the High Latitude region is prior-dominated, while the Galactic Center region is contaminated by residual instrumental systematics. The two remaining regions appear to be both signal-dominated and clean of systematics, and for these we derive spectral indices of $beta_{mathrm s}^{mathrm{Spur}}=-3.15pm0.07$ and $beta_{mathrm s}^{mathrm{Plane}}=-3.12pm0.06$. This agrees qualitatively with the WMAP-only polarization constraints presented by Dunkley et al. (2009), but contrasts with several temperature-based analyses. For thermal dust emission we assume a modified blackbody model and we fit the power-law index across the full sky. We find $beta_{mathrm{d}}=1.62pm0.04$, which is slightly steeper than that previously reported from Planck HFI data, but still statistically consistent at a 2$sigma$ confidence level.
Radio recombination lines (RRLs) can be used to determine the emission measure unambiguously along the Galactic plane. We use the deep (2100s per beam) HI Parkes Zone of Avoidance survey which includes 3 RRLs (H$166alpha$, H$167alpha$ and H$168alpha$) within its bandwidth. The region $ell = 36degr$ to $44degr$, $b = -4degr$ to $+4degr$ is chosen to include emission from the Local, Sagittarius and Scutum arms. An $8degr times 8degr$ data cube centred at $(ell, b) = (40degr, 0degr)$ is constructed of RRL spectra with velocity and spatial resolution of 27$kms$ and 15.5 arcmin, respectively. Well-known hii regions are identified as well as the diffuse RRL emission on the Galactic plane. A Galactic latitude section of the integrated RRL emission across the Galactic plane delineates the brightness temperature ($T_{b}$) distribution which has a half-power width in latitude of $simeq 1fdg5$. A value of the electron temperature $T_{e} simeq 8000$ K is derived from a comparison with the WMAP free-free MEM model. The $T_{b}$ distribution from the present RRL data is combined with the WMAP 5-yr data to derive the anomalous dust on the Galactic ridge. In this paper we demonstrate that diffuse ionized emission on the Galactic ridge can be recovered using RRLs from the ZOA survey. This method is therefore able to complement the ha data at low Galactic latitudes, to enable an all-sky free-free template to be derived.
The 30 and 44 GHz Back End Modules (BEM) for the Planck Low Frequency Instrument are broadband receivers (20% relative bandwidth) working at room temperature. The signals coming from the Front End Module are amplified, band pass filtered and finally converted to DC by a detector diode. Each receiver has two identical branches following the differential scheme of the Planck radiometers. The BEM design is based on MMIC Low Noise Amplifiers using GaAs P-HEMT devices, microstrip filters and Schottky diode detectors. Their manufacturing development has included elegant breadboard prototypes and finally qualification and flight model units. Electrical, mechanical and environmental tests were carried out for the characterization and verification of the manufactured BEMs. A description of the 30 and 44 GHz Back End Modules of Planck-LFI radiometers is given, with details of the tests done to determine their electrical and environmental performances. The electrical performances of the 30 and 44 GHz Back End Modules: frequency response, effective bandwidth, equivalent noise temperature, 1/f noise and linearity are presented.
Polarized diffuse emission observations at 1.4-GHz in a high Galactic latitude area of the northern Celestial hemisphere are presented. The 3.2 X 3.2 deg^2 field, centred at RA = 10h 58m, Dec = +42deg 18 (B1950), has Galactic coordinates l~172deg, b~+63deg and is located in the region selected as northern target of the BaR-SPOrt experiment. Observations have been performed with the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. We find that the angular power spectra of the E- and B-modes have slopes of beta_E = -1.79 +/- 0.13 and beta_B = -1.74 +/- 0.12, respectively. Because of the very high Galactic latitude and the smooth emission, a weak Faraday rotation action is expected, which allows both a fair extrapolation to Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization (CMBP) frequencies and an estimate of the contamination by Galactic synchrotron emission. We extrapolate the E-mode spectrum up to 32-GHz and confirm the possibility to safely detect the CMBP E-mode signal in the Ka band found in another low emission region (Carretti et al. 2005b). Extrapolated up to 90-GHz, the Galactic synchrotron B-mode looks to compete with the cosmic signal only for models with a tensor-to-scalar perturbation power ratio T/S < 0.001, which is even lower than the T/S value of 0.01 found to be accessible in the only other high Galactic latitude area investigated to date. This suggests that values as low as T/S = 0.01 might be accessed at high Galactic latitudes. Such low emission values can allow a significant red-shift of the best frequency to detect the CMBP B-mode, also reducing the contamination by Galactic dust, and opening interesting perspectives to investigate Inflation models.
We report the spectral index of diffuse radio emission between 50 and 100 MHz from data collected with two implementations of the Experiment to Detect the Global EoR Signature (EDGES) low-band system. EDGES employs a wide beam zenith-pointing dipole antenna centred on a declination of $-26.7^circ$. We measure the sky brightness temperature as a function of frequency averaged over the EDGES beam from 244 nights of data acquired between 14 September 2016 to 27 August 2017. We derive the spectral index, $beta$, as a function of local sidereal time (LST) using night-time data and a two-parameter fitting equation. We find $-2.59<beta<-2.54 pm 0.011$ between 0 and 12 h LST, ignoring ionospheric effects. When the Galactic Centre is in the sky, the spectral index flattens, reaching $beta = -2.46 pm 0.011$ at 18.2 h. The measurements are stable throughout the observations with night-to-night reproducibility of $sigma_{beta}<0.004$ except for the LST range of 7 to 12 h. We compare our measurements with predictions from various global sky models and find that the closest match is with the spectral index derived from the Guzm{a}n and Haslam sky maps, similar to the results found with the EDGES high-band instrument for 90-190 MHz. Three-parameter fitting was also evaluated with the result that the spectral index becomes more negative by $sim$0.02 and has a maximum total uncertainty of 0.016. We also find that the third parameter, the spectral index curvature, $gamma$, is constrained to $-0.11<gamma<-0.04$. Correcting for expected levels of night-time ionospheric absorption causes $beta$ to become more negative by $0.008$ - $0.016$ depending on LST.