No Arabic abstract
Simulated observations of a $10dg times 10dg$ field by the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) are analysed in order to separate cosmic microwave background (CMB) emission from foreground contaminants and instrumental noise and thereby determine how accurately the CMB emission can be recovered. The simulations include emission from the CMB, the kinetic and thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effects from galaxy clusters, as well as Galactic dust, free-free and synchrotron. We find that, even in the presence of these contaminating foregrounds, the CMB map is reconstructed with an rms accuracy of about 20 $mu$K per 12.6 arcmin pixel, which represents a substantial improvement as compared to the individual temperature sensitivities of the raw data channels. We also find, for the single $10dg times 10dg$ field, that the CMB power spectrum is accurately recovered for $ell la 600$.
A maximum entropy method (MEM) is presented for separating the emission due to different foreground components from simulated satellite observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In particular, the method is applied to simulated observations by the proposed Planck Surveyor satellite. The simulations, performed by Bouchet and Gispert (1998), include emission from the CMBR, the kinetic and thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effects from galaxy clusters, as well as Galactic dust, free-free and synchrotron emission. We find that the MEM technique performs well and produces faithful reconstructions of the main input components. The method is also compared with traditional Wiener filtering and is shown to produce consistently better results, particularly in the recovery of the thermal SZ effect.
We present the first sky maps from the BEAST (Background Emission Anisotropy Scanning Telescope) experiment. BEAST consists of a 2.2 meter off axis Gregorian telescope fed by a cryogenic millimeter wavelength focal plane currently consisting of 6 Q band (40 GHz) and 2 Ka band (30 GHz) scalar feed horns feeding cryogenic HEMT amplifiers. Data were collected from two balloon-borne flights in 2000, followed by a lengthy ground observing campaign from the 3.8 Km altitude University of California White Mountain Research Station. This paper reports the initial results from the ground based observations. The instrument produced an annular map covering the sky from declinateion 33 to 42 degrees. The maps cover an area of 2470 square degrees with an effective resolution of 23 arcminutes FWHM at 40 GHz and 30 arcminutes at 30 GHz. The map RMS (smoothed to 30 arcminutes and excluding galactic foregrounds) is 54 +-5 microK at 40 GHz. Comparison with the instrument noise gives a cosmic signal RMS contribution of 28 +-3 microK. An estimate of the actual CMB sky signal requires taking into account the l-space filter function of our experiment and analysis techniques, carried out in a companion paper (ODwyer et al. 2003). In addition to the robust detection of CMB anisotropies, we find a strong correlation between small portions of our maps and features in recent H$alpha$ maps (Finkbeiner, 2003). In this work we describe the data set and analysis techniques leading to the maps, including data selection, filtering, pointing reconstruction, mapmaking algorithms and systematic effects. A detailed description of the experiment appears in Childers et al. (2003).
We study the effect of extragalactic point sources on satellite observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In order to separate the contributions due to different foreground components, a maximum-entropy method is applied to simulated observations by the Planck Surveyor satellite. In addition to point sources, the simulations include emission from the CMB and the kinetic and thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effects from galaxy clusters, as well as Galactic dust, free-free and synchrotron emission. We find that the main input components are faithfully recovered and, in particular, that the quality of the CMB reconstruction is only slightly reduced by the presence of point sources. In addition, we find that it is possible to recover accurate point source catalogues at each of the Planck Surveyor observing frequencies.
Radio interferometers are well suited to studies of both total intensity and polarized intensity fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and they have been used successfully in measurements of both the primary and secondary anisotropy. Recent observations with the Cosmic Background Imager operating in the Chilean Andes, the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer operating at the South Pole, and the Very Small Array operating in Tenerife have probed the primary anisotropy over a wide range of angular scales. The advantages of interferometers for microwave background observations of both total intensity and polarized radiation are discussed, and the cosmological results from these three instruments are presented. The results show that, subject to a reasonable value for the Hubble constant, which is degenerate with the geometry in closed models, the geometry of the Universe is flat to high precision (~5%) and the primordial fluctuation spectrum is very close to the scale-invariant Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum. Both of these findings are concordant with inflationary predictions. The results also show that the baryonic matter content is consistent with that found from primordial nucleosynthesis, while the cold dark matter component can account for no more than ~40% of the energy density of the Universe. It is a requirement of these observations, therefore, that ~60% of the energy content of the Universe is not related to matter, either baryonic or nonbaryonic. This dark energy component of the energy density is attributed to a nonzero cosmological constant.
We use data from the Tenerife 10, 15 and 33 GHz beamswitching experiments along with the COBE 53 and 90 GHz data to separate the cosmic microwave background (CMB) signal from the Galactic signal and create two maps at high Galactic latitude. The new multi-MEM technique is used to obtain the best reconstruction of the two channels. The two maps are presented and known features are identified within each. We find that the Galactic contribution to both the 15 and 33 GHz Tenerife data is small enough to be ignored when compared to the errors in the data and the magnitude of the CMB signal.