No Arabic abstract
The detection and flux estimation of point sources in cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps is a very important task in order to clean the maps and also to obtain relevant astrophysical information. In this paper we propose a maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach detection method in a Bayesian scheme which incorporates prior information about the source flux distribution, the locations and the number of sources. We apply this method to CMB simulations with the characteristics of the Planck satellite channels at 30, 44, 70 and 100 GHz. With a similar level of spurious sources, our method yields more complete catalogues than the matched filter with a 5 sigma threshold. Besides, the new technique allows us to fix the number of detected sources in a non-arbitrary way.
We use the Planck LFI 70GHz data to further probe point source detection technique in the sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The method developed by Tegmark et al. for foreground reduced maps and the Kolmogorov parameter as the descriptor are adopted for the analysis of Planck satellite CMB temperature data. Most of the detected points coincide with point sources already revealed by other methods. However, we have also found 9 source candidates for which still no counterparts are known.
Clusters of galaxies produce negative features at wavelengths $lambda > 1.25$ mm in CMB maps, by means of the thermal SZ effect, while point radio sources produce positive peaks. This fact implies that a distribution of unresolved SZ clusters could be detected using the negative asymmetry introduced in the odd-moments of the brightness map (skewness and higher), or in the probability distribution function (PDF) for the fluctuations, once the map has been filtered in order to remove the contribution from primordial CMB fluctuations from large scales. This property provides a consistency check to the recent detections from CBI and BIMA experiments of an excess of power at small angular scales, in order to confirm that they are produced by a distribution of unresolved SZ clusters. However it will require at least 1.5 - 2 times more observing time than detection of corresponding power signal. This approach could also be used with the data of the planned SZ experiments (e.g. ACT, AMI, AMIBA, APEX, 8 m South Pole telescope).
Recent polarimetric surveys of extragalactic radio sources (ERS) at frequencies u>1GHz are reviewed. By exploiting all the most relevant data on the polarized emission of ERS we study the frequency dependence of polarization properties of ERS between 1.4 and 86GHz. For flat-spectrum sources the median (mean) fractional polarization increases from 1.5% (2-2.5%) at 1.4GHz to 2.5-3% (3-3.5%) at u>10GHz. Steep-spectrum sources are typically more polarized, especially at high frequencies where Faraday depolarization is less relevant. As a general result, we do not find that the fractional polarization of ERS depends on the total flux density at high radio frequencies, i.e >20GHz. Moreover, in this frequency range, current data suggest a moderate increase of the fractional polarization of ERS with frequency. A formalism to estimate ERS number counts in polarization and the contribution of unresolved polarized ERS to angular power spectra at Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) frequencies is also developed and discussed. As a first application, we present original predictions for the Planck satellite mission. Our current results show that only a dozen polarized ERS will be detected by the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), and a few tens by the High Frequency Instrument (HFI). As for CMB power spectra, ERS should not be a strong contaminant to the CMB E-mode polarization at frequencies u>70GHz. On the contrary, they can become a relevant constraint for the detection of the cosmological B--mode polarization if the tensor-to-scalar ratio is <0.01.
We combine the latest datasets obtained with different surveys to study the frequency dependence of polarized emission coming from Extragalactic Radio Sources (ERS). We consider data over a very wide frequency range starting from $1.4$ GHz up to $217$ GHz. This range is particularly interesting since it overlaps the frequencies of the current and forthcoming Cosmic Microwave Background (cmb) experiments. Current data suggest that at high radio frequencies, ($ u geq 20$ GHz) the fractional polarization of ERS does not depend on the total flux density. Conversely, recent datasets indicate a moderate increase of polarization fraction as a function of frequency, physically motivated by the fact that Faraday depolarization is expected to be less relevant at high radio-frequencies. We compute ERS number counts using updated models based on recent data, and we forecast the contribution of unresolved ERS in CMB polarization spectra. Given the expected sensitivities and the observational patch sizes of forthcoming cmb experiments about $sim 200 $ ( up to $sim 2000 $ ) polarized ERS are expected to be detected. Finally, we assess that polarized ERS can contaminate the cosmological B-mode polarization if the tensor-to-scalar ratio is $r< 0.05$ and they have to be robustly controlled to de-lens cmb B-modes at the arcminute angular scales.
The estimation of the polarization $P$ of extragalactic compact sources in Cosmic Microwave Background images is a very important task in order to clean these images for cosmological purposes -- as, for example, to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio of primordial fluctuations during inflation -- and also to obtain relevant astrophysical information about the compact sources themselves in a frequency range, $ u sim 10$--$200$ GHz, where observations have only very recently started to be available. In this paper we propose a Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach estimation scheme which incorporates prior information about the distribution of the polarization fraction of extragalactic compact sources between 1 and 100 GHz. We apply this Bayesian scheme to white noise simulations and to more realistic simulations that include CMB intensity, Galactic foregrounds and instrumental noise with the characteristics of the QUIJOTE experiment Wide Survey at 11 GHz. Using these simulations, we also compare our Bayesian method with the frequentist Filtered Fusion method that has been already used in WMAP data and in the emph{Planck} mission. We find that the Bayesian method allows us to decrease the threshold for a feasible estimation of $P$ to levels below $sim 100$ mJy (as compared to $sim 500$ mJy that was the equivalent threshold for the frequentist Filtered Fusion). We compare the bias introduced by the Bayesian method and find it to be small in absolute terms. Finally, we test the robustness of the Bayesian estimator against uncertainties in the prior and in the flux density of the sources. We find that the Bayesian estimator is robust against moderate changes in the parameters of the prior and almost insensitive to realistic errors in the estimated photometry of the sources.