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Register a new userAnalysis of WMAP 7-year Temperature Data: Astrophysics of the Galactic Haze
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Davide Pietrobon Dr
Publication date
2011
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We analyse WMAP 7-year temperature data, jointly modeling the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Galactic foreground emission. We use the Commander code based on Gibbs sampling. Thus, from the WMAP7 data, we derive simultaneously the CMB and Galactic components on scales larger than 1deg with sensitivity improved relative to previous work. We conduct a detailed study of the low-frequency foreground with particular focus on the microwave haze emission around the Galactic center. We demonstrate improved performance in quantifying the diffuse galactic emission when Haslam 408MHz data are included together with WMAP7, and the spinning and thermal dust emission is modeled jointly. We also address the question of whether the hypothetical galactic haze can be explained by a spatial variation of the synchrotron spectral index. The excess of emission around the Galactic center appears stable with respect to variations of the foreground model that we study. Our results demonstrate that the new galactic foreground component - the microwave haze - is indeed present.
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[Abridged] We present updated estimates of Galactic foreground emission using seven years of WMAP data. Using the power spectrum of differences between multi-frequency template-cleaned maps, we find no evidence for foreground contamination outside of the updated (KQ85y7) foreground mask. We place a 15 microKelvin upper bound on rms foreground contamination in the cleaned maps used for cosmological analysis. We find no indication in the polarization data of an extra haze of hard synchrotron emission from energetic electrons near the Galactic center. We provide an updated map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using the internal linear combination (ILC) method, updated foreground masks, and updates to point source catalogs with 62 newly detected sources. Also new are tests of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) foreground fitting procedure against systematics in the time-stream data, and tests against the observed beam asymmetry. Within a few degrees of the Galactic plane, WMAP total intensity data show a rapidly steepening spectrum from 20-40 GHz, which may be due to emission from spinning dust grains, steepening synchrotron, or other effects. Comparisons are made to a 1-degree 408 MHz map (Haslam et al.) and the 11-degree ARCADE 2 data (Singal et al.). We find that spinning dust or steepening synchrotron models fit the combination of WMAP and 408 MHz data equally well. ARCADE data appear inconsistent with the steepening synchrotron model, and consistent with the spinning dust model, though some discrepancies remain regarding the relative strength of spinning dust emission. More high-resolution data in the 10-40 GHz range would shed much light on these issues.
Using precise full-sky observations from Planck, and applying several methods of component separation, we identify and characterize the emission from the Galactic haze at microwave wavelengths. The haze is a distinct component of diffuse Galactic emission, roughly centered on the Galactic centre, and extends to |b| ~35 deg in Galactic latitude and |l| ~15 deg in longitude. By combining the Planck data with observations from the WMAP we are able to determine the spectrum of this emission to high accuracy, unhindered by the large systematic biases present in previous analyses. The derived spectrum is consistent with power-law emission with a spectral index of -2.55 +/- 0.05, thus excluding free-free emission as the source and instead favouring hard-spectrum synchrotron radiation from an electron population with a spectrum (number density per energy) dN/dE ~ E^-2.1. At Galactic latitudes |b|<30 deg, the microwave haze morphology is consistent with that of the Fermi gamma-ray haze or bubbles, indicating that we have a multi-wavelength view of a distinct component of our Galaxy. Given both the very hard spectrum and the extended nature of the emission, it is highly unlikely that the haze electrons result from supernova shocks in the Galactic disk. Instead, a new mechanism for cosmic-ray acceleration in the centre of our Galaxy is implied.
Gamma rays and microwave observations of the Galactic Center and surrounding areas indicate the presence of anomalous emission, whose origin remains ambiguous. The possibility of dark matter (DM) annihilation explaining both signals through prompt emission at gamma-rays and secondary emission at microwave frequencies from interactions of high-energy electrons produced in annihilation with the Galactic magnetic fields has attracted much interest in recent years. We investigate the DM interpretation of the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess by searching for the associated synchrotron in the WMAP-Planck data. Considering various magnetic field and cosmic-ray propagation models, we predict the synchrotron emission due to DM annihilation in our Galaxy, and compare it with the WMAP-Planck data at 23-70GHz. In addition to standard microwave foregrounds, we separately model the microwave counterpart to the Fermi Bubbles and the signal due to DM, and use component separation techniques to extract the signal associated with each template from the total emission. We confirm the presence of the Haze at the level of 7% of the total sky intensity at 23GHz in our chosen region of interest, with a harder spectrum $I sim u^{-0.8}$ than the synchrotron from regular cosmic-ray electrons. The data do not show a strong preference towards fitting the Haze by either the Bubbles or DM emission only. Inclusion of both components provides a better fit with a DM contribution to the Haze emission of 20% at 23GHz, however, due to significant uncertainties in foreground modeling, we do not consider this a clear detection of a DM signal. We set robust upper limits on the annihilation cross section by ignoring foregrounds, and also report best-fit DM annihilation parameters obtained from a complete template analysis. We conclude that the WMAP-Planck data are consistent with a DM interpretation of the gamma-ray excess.
It was proposed that the two phenomena, WMAP-Planck haze and Fermi bubbles, may have a common origin. In the present paper we analyze the spatial structure of the haze using the Planck 2018 data release. It is found that the spatial dimensions and locations of WMAP-Planck haze and Fermi bubbles are compatible within the experimental uncertainties. No substructures similar to the Fermi bubbles cocoon are identified in the Planck data. Comparison with the spatial extent of possible synchrotron emission caused by the electron-positron pair emitted by the Galactic center pulsar population and by the decay of dark matter particles in the Galactic center region are performed. Both galactic pulsars and dark matter decay remain viable explanations of the WMAP-Planck haze.
We present an analysis of the foreground emission present in the WMAP 3-year data as determined by the method of Independent Component Analysis. We derived coupling coefficients between the WMAP data and foreground templates which are then used to infer the spectral behaviour for three foreground components -- synchrotron, anomalous dust-correlated emission and free-free. For the first two components, we find values consistent with previous results although slightly steeper. We confirm the inconsistency in the scaling between the Ha template and free-free emission at K- and Ka-bands where an electron temperature of ~ 4000 K is indicated. We also see evidence of significantly flatter spectral behaviour to higher frequencies than expected theoretically and previously noted by Dobler et al.(2008a), but only when analysing the Kp2 sky coverage. We further apply FASTICA iteratively, using data pre-cleaned using foreground templates scaled to the WMAP frequencies by coupling coefficients determined by a prior FASTICA analysis. This multi-frequency analysis allows us to determine the presence of residual foreground emission not traced by the templates. We confirm the existence of a component spatially distributed along the Galactic plane and particularly enhanced near the center (the WMAP haze). This emission is less extended when using the WMAP K-Ka data as the synchrotron template confirming that it can be considered a better template for foreground cleaning of the WMAP data. However its use complicates the physical interpretation of the nature of the foreground emission and residuals. since it contains a mixture of several, physically distinct emission mechanisms.
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