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A. Basyrov

Publications and source records attributed to A. Basyrov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Galactic Science with the LiteBIRD satellite: Spectral characterization of diffuse Galactic polarized emission at the angular power spectrum level

Detection of primordial $B$-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from tensor perturbations generated during inflation is a major scientific goal of future CMB missions. Its success will strongly depend on the characterization of polarized foregrounds, a challenge that the LiteBIRD satellite aims to tackle with its 15 frequency bands ranging from 40 to 402 GHz. In this work, we forecast the ability of LiteBIRD to characterize polarized dust and synchrotron emission in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM), at the angular power spectrum level. From simulated LiteBIRD intensity and polarization maps with different foreground complexities, we compute cross-frequency angular power spectra and fit them to dust and synchrotron spectral energy distributions, which are modeled by a modified black body and a power law, respectively. We find that LiteBIRD will be able to measure the dust temperature, dust and synchrotron spectral indices and spatial correlation with dispersions as low as $σ(T_{\rm d})\sim0.2$ K, $σ(β_{\rm d})\sim0.006$, $σ(β_{\rm s})\sim0.04$ and $σ(ρ)\sim10^{-2}$, as well as to detect and quantify deviations from the proposed parametric model due to variations of the emission properties in the three dimensions of our Galaxy. Additionally, LiteBIRD is likely to rule out the power-law model of polarized foreground angular power spectra suggested by Planck data. It will also be able to detect differences in the values of $β_{\rm d}$, $T_{\rm d}$, and $β_{\rm s}$ between $E$ modes, $B$ modes, and intensity in the diffuse ISM for the first time, highlighting the joint variations of the physical conditions and the magnetic field structure across the Galaxy. We conclude that in addition to detailed studies of CMB polarization, LiteBIRD will open a new window onto the physical conditions governing the ISM of the Milky Way.

astro-ph.GA

A cross-calibration approach for polarisation-sensitive detectors in CMB experiments: application to LiteBIRD's polarisation angle calibration

One of the current challenges in observational cosmology is obtaining high-precision polarisation maps of the CMB to measure primordial $B$-modes and constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r$). The weakness of this signal compared to foregrounds and $E$-to-$B$ leakage makes this task particularly challenging, requiring large detector arrays operating at multiple frequencies and extremely precise calibration. We present a cross-calibration algorithm to determine relative calibration of detectors within the same frequency band of a CMB experiment. The method iteratively compares single-detector maps with band-averaged maps and can be applied to any calibration parameter that can be observed and corrected at the map level, relaxing pre-flight calibration requirements and enabling post-processing validation. We validate the pipeline by calibrating the polarisation angle of simulated LiteBIRD observations, including both random detector miscalibration and wafer-level rotations. The algorithm converges to correct values with arcminute precision. Finally, we propagate residual calibration uncertainties through component separation and tensor-to-scalar ratio estimation pipelines using both parametric (FgBuster) and blind (HILC) methods. The induced bias on $r$ remains well below the LiteBIRD systematics budget of $δr < 6.5\times10^{-6}$, demonstrating that the method is suitable for next-generation CMB experiments.

astro-ph.CO

Mitigating half-wave plate systematics at the map-making level: calibration requirements for LiteBIRD

Although half-wave plates (HWPs) are becoming a popular choice of polarization modulators for cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments, their non-idealities can introduce systematic effects that should be carefully characterized and mitigated. One possible mitigation strategy is to incorporate information about the non-idealities at the map-making level, which helps to reduce the HWP-induced distortions of the reconstructed CMB. Nevertheless, the non-idealities can only be known with finite precision. In this paper we investigate the consequences of discrepancies between their true frequency profiles and those assumed by the map-maker. We present an end-to-end framework, including a blind component-separation step, and use it to translate these discrepancies into a bias on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, for the LiteBIRD satellite mission. We subsequently derive realistic and conservative measurement requirements for accurately characterizing the HWP non-idealities to ensure they do not compromise LiteBIRD's ambitious scientific goals. We find that the obtained results are robust against sky models with varying complexity.

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. III. Improved modelling of zodiacal light with COBE-DIRBE through global Bayesian analysis

We present an improved zodiacal light (ZL) model for COBE-DIRBE derived through global Bayesian analysis within the Cosmoglobe Data Release 2 framework. The parametric form of the ZL model is inspired by the original DIRBE model by Kelsall et al. (K98), but the specific best-fit parameter values are re-derived using the combination of DIRBE Calibrated Individual Observations, Planck HFI sky maps, and WISE and Gaia compact object catalogs. Furthermore, the ZL parameters are fitted jointly with astrophysical parameters, such as thermal dust and starlight emission, and the new model takes into account excess radiation that appears stationary in solar-centric coordinates as reported in a companion paper. The relative differences between the predicted signals from K98 and our new model are $\lesssim 3\%$ in the 12 and 25 $μ$m channels over the full sky. The zero-levels of the cleaned DR2 maps are lower than those of the K98 ZL Subtracted Mission Average maps by $\sim 30$ kJy/sr at 1.25--3.5 $μ$m, which is larger than the entire predicted contribution from high-redshift galaxies to the Cosmic Infrared Background at the same wavelengths. At high Galactic latitudes, the total RMS of each DR2 map is lower than the corresponding DIRBE ZSMA map of $\sim$ 80 \% at wavelengths 4.9--25 $μ\mathrm{m}$. Still, obvious ZL residuals can be seen in several of the DR2 maps, and further work is required to mitigate these. Joint analysis with high-resolution full-sky surveys such as AKARI, IRAS, Planck HFI, and SPHEREx will be essential both to break key degeneracies in the current model and to determine whether the reported solar-centric excess radiation has a ZL or instrumental origin. Thus, while the results presented in this paper do redefine the state-of-the-art for DIRBE modelling, it also only represents the first among many steps toward a future optimal Bayesian ZL model. (abridged)

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. VI. Disentangling hot and cold thermal dust emission with Planck HFI

We present a four-component high-resolution model of thermal dust emission for microwave and sub-mm frequencies derived from Planck HFI, WHAM and Gaia. The resulting high-resolution model derived here forms the basis for the thermal dust model employed in the Cosmoglobe DR2 reanalysis of COBE-DIRBE. The four dust components are called ``cold dust'', ``hot dust'', ``nearby dust'', and ``Ha correlated dust'', respectively, and trace different physical environments. The spatial distributions of the nearby dust and Ha dust components are defined by the Edenhofer et al. Gaia 3D extinction model and the WHAM survey, respectively, while the hot and cold dust components are fit freely pixel-by-pixel to the Planck HFI data. We use a global parameter grid search coupled to an amplitude map Gibbs sampler to fit this model to Planck HFI data. In agreement with the companion low-resolution analysis, we find that the hot dust component is strongly correlated with the FIRAS Cii map, while the cold dust component is strongly correlated with the HI4PI Hi map. Despite its fewer degrees of freedom per pixel compared to the Planck 2015 legacy dust model, we find that this new model performs competitively in terms of overall residuals, capturing over 98% of the full-sky dust variance for all channels. When fitting a spatially varying 3-parameter MBB model to the new dust model with isotropic SEDs, we find very similar spatial distributions to those of the official Planck analysis, and this new model thus represents an economical decomposition of previously published spatially varying spectral parameter maps. We conclude that this new model represents both a statistically more efficient summary of thermal dust in the microwave and far-infrared regimes and a physically more realistic decomposition of the sky compared to the traditional 3-parameter MBB model. (abridged)

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. V. Spatial correlations between thermal dust and ionized carbon emission in Planck HFI and COBE-DIRBE

We fit five tracers of thermal dust emission to ten Planck HFI and COBE-DIRBE frequency maps between 353 GHz and 25 THz, aiming to map the relative importance of each physical host environment as a function of frequency and position on the sky. Four of these correspond to classic thermal dust tracers, namely H i (HI4PI), CO (Dame et al. 2001a), Hα (WHAM, Haffner et al. (2003a, 2016)), and dust extinction (Gaia; Edenhofer et al. 2024), while the fifth is ionized carbon (C ii) emission as observed by COBE- FIRAS. We jointly fit these five templates to each frequency channel through standard multi-variate linear regression. At frequencies higher than 1 THz, we find that the dominant tracer is in fact C ii, and above 10 THz this component accounts for almost the entire fitted signal; at frequencies below 1 THz, its importance is second only to H i. We further find that all five components are well described by a modified blackbody spectral energy density (SED) up to some component-dependent maximum frequency ranging between 1 and 5 THz. In this interpretation, the C ii-correlated component is the hottest among all five, with an effective temperature of about 25 K. The Hα component has a temperature of 18 K, and, unlike the other four, is observed in absorption rather than emission. Despite the simplicity of this model, which relies only on external templates coupled to spatially isotropic SEDs, we find that it captures 98 % of the full signal root mean squared (RMS) below 1 THz. This high efficiency suggests that spatial variations in the thermal dust SED, as for instance reported by Planck and other experiments, may be more economically modelled on large angular scales in terms of a spatial mixing of individually isotropic physical components.

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. VII. Towards a concordance model of large-scale thermal dust emission for microwave and infrared frequencies

We fit a four-component thermal dust model to COBE-DIRBE data between 3.5 and 240 micron within the global Bayesian end-to-end Cosmoglobe DR2 reanalysis. Following a companion analysis of Planck HFI, the four components of this model correspond to "hot dust", "cold dust", "nearby dust", and "Halpha correlated dust", respectively, and each component is modelled in terms of a fixed spatial template and a spatially isotropic spectral energy density (SED) defined by an overall free amplitude for each DIRBE channel. Except for the cold dust amplitude, which is only robustly detected in the 240 micron channel, we measure statistically significant template amplitudes for all components in all DIRBE channels between 12 and 240 micron. In the 3.5 and 4.9 micron channels, only the hot component is detected, while the 1.25 and 2.2 micron channels are too dominated by starlight emission to allow robust dust detections. The total number of DIRBE-specific degrees of freedom in this model is 25. Despite this low dimensionality, the resulting total SED agrees well with recent astrodust predictions. At both low and high frequencies, more than 95 % of the frequency map variance is captured by the model, while at 60 and 100 micron about 70 % of the signal variance is successfully accounted for. The hot dust component, which in a companion paper has been found to correlate strongly with C ii emission, has the highest absolute amplitude in all DIRBE frequency channels; in particular, at 3.5 micron, which is known to be dominated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission, this component accounts for at least 80 % of the total signal. This analysis represents an important step towards establishing a joint concordance model of thermal dust emission applicable to both the microwave and infrared regimes.

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. IV. Modelling starlight in DIRBE with Gaia and WISE

We present a model of starlight emission in the Diffuse Infrared Background Explorer (DIRBE) data between 1.25 and 25$\,μ$m based on \textit{Gaia} and WISE measurements. We include two classes of compact objects, namely bright stars with individual spectral energy densities (SEDs) measured by \textit{Gaia}, and a combined diffuse background of dim point source emission. Of the 424\ 829 bright sources that we fit, the number of stars with a flux density detected by WISE at Galactic latitudes $|b|>20^{\circ}$ at more than $5\,σ$ is 94\,680, for an average of 1.36~stars per DIRBE beam area. For each star, we adopt physical parameters ($T_{\mathrm{eff}}$, $\log g$, and [M/H]) from \textit{Gaia}; use these to identify a best-fit effective SED with the PHOENIX stellar model library; convolve with the respective DIRBE bandpass; and fit an overall free amplitude per star within the Bayesian end-to-end \texttt{Cosmoglobe} DR2 framework. The contributions from faint sources are accounted for by coadding all 710\ 825\ 587 WISE sources not included as bright stars, and fit one single overall amplitude per DIRBE band. Based on this model we find that total star emission accounts for 91\,\% of the observed flux density at 2.2\,$μ$m; 54\,\% at 4.9$\,μ$m; and 1\,\% at 25\,$μ$m. As shown in companion papers, this new model is sufficiently accurate to support high-precision measurements of both the Cosmic Infrared Background monopole and zodiacal light emission in the three highest DIRBE frequencies.

astro-ph.CO

On the computational feasibility of Bayesian end-to-end analysis of LiteBIRD simulations within Cosmoglobe

We assess the computational feasibility of end-to-end Bayesian analysis of the JAXA-led LiteBIRD experiment by analysing simulated time ordered data (TOD) for a subset of detectors through the Cosmoglobe and Commander3 framework. The data volume for the simulated TOD is 1.55 TB, or 470 GB after Huffman compression. From this we estimate a total data volume of 238 TB for the full three year mission, or 70 TB after Huffman compression. We further estimate the running time for one Gibbs sample, from TOD to cosmological parameters, to be approximately 3000 CPU hours. The current simulations are based on an ideal instrument model, only including correlated 1/f noise. Future work will consider realistic systematics with full end-to-end error propagation. We conclude that these requirements are well within capabilities of future high-performance computing systems.

astro-ph.IM

The Simons Observatory: forecasted constraints on primordial gravitational waves with the expanded array of Small Aperture Telescopes

We present updated forecasts for the scientific performance of the degree-scale (0.5 deg FWHM at 93 GHz), deep-field survey to be conducted by the Simons Observatory (SO). By 2027, the SO Small Aperture Telescope (SAT) complement will be doubled from three to six telescopes, including a doubling of the detector count in the 93 GHz and 145 GHz channels to 48,160 detectors. Combined with a planned extension of the survey duration to 2035, this expansion will significantly enhance SO's search for a $B$-mode signal in the polarisation of the cosmic microwave background, a potential signature of gravitational waves produced in the very early Universe. Assuming a $1/f$ noise model with knee multipole $\ell_{\rm knee} = 50$ and a moderately complex model for Galactic foregrounds, we forecast a $1σ$ (or 68% confidence level) constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ of $σ_r = 1.2\times10^{-3}$, assuming no primordial $B$-modes are present. This forecast assumes that 70% of the $B$-mode lensing signal can ultimately be removed using high resolution observations from the SO Large Aperture Telescope (LAT) and overlapping large-scale structure surveys. For more optimistic assumptions regarding foregrounds and noise, and assuming the same level of delensing, this forecast constraint improves to $σ_r = 7\times10^{-4}$. These forecasts represent a major improvement in SO's constraining power, being a factor of around 2.5 times better than what could be achieved with the originally planned campaign, which assumed the existing three SATs would conduct a five-year survey.

astro-ph.CO

LiteBIRD Science Goals and Forecasts: constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence

Cosmic birefringence (CB) is the rotation of the photons' linear polarisation plane during propagation. Such an effect is a tracer of parity-violating extensions of standard electromagnetism and would probe the existence of a new cosmological field acting as dark matter or dark energy. It has become customary to employ cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarised data to probe such a phenomenon. Recent analyses on Planck and WMAP data provide a hint of detection of the isotropic CB angle with an amplitude of around $0.3^\circ$ at the level of $2.4$ to $3.6σ$. In this work, we explore the LiteBIRD capabilities in constraining such an effect, accounting for the impact of the more relevant systematic effects, namely foreground emission and instrumental polarisation angles. We build five semi-independent pipelines and test these against four different simulation sets with increasing complexity in terms of non-idealities. All the pipelines are shown to be robust and capable of returning the expected values of the CB angle within statistical fluctuations for all the cases considered. We find that the uncertainties in the CB estimates increase with more complex simulations. However, the trend is less pronounced for pipelines that account for the instrumental polarisation angles. For the most complex case analysed, we find that LiteBIRD will be able to detect a CB angle of $0.3^\circ$ with a statistical significance ranging from $5$ to $13 \, σ$, depending on the pipeline employed, where the latter uncertainty corresponds to a total error budget of the order of $0.02^\circ$.

astro-ph.CO

LiteBIRD Science Goals and Forecasts. A Case Study of the Origin of Primordial Gravitational Waves using Large-Scale CMB Polarization

We study the possibility of using the $LiteBIRD$ satellite $B$-mode survey to constrain models of inflation producing specific features in CMB angular power spectra. We explore a particular model example, i.e. spectator axion-SU(2) gauge field inflation. This model can source parity-violating gravitational waves from the amplification of gauge field fluctuations driven by a pseudoscalar "axionlike" field, rolling for a few e-folds during inflation. The sourced gravitational waves can exceed the vacuum contribution at reionization bump scales by about an order of magnitude and can be comparable to the vacuum contribution at recombination bump scales. We argue that a satellite mission with full sky coverage and access to the reionization bump scales is necessary to understand the origin of the primordial gravitational wave signal and distinguish among two production mechanisms: quantum vacuum fluctuations of spacetime and matter sources during inflation. We present the expected constraints on model parameters from $LiteBIRD$ satellite simulations, which complement and expand previous studies in the literature. We find that $LiteBIRD$ will be able to exclude with high significance standard single-field slow-roll models, such as the Starobinsky model, if the true model is the axion-SU(2) model with a feature at CMB scales. We further investigate the possibility of using the parity-violating signature of the model, such as the $TB$ and $EB$ angular power spectra, to disentangle it from the standard single-field slow-roll scenario. We find that most of the discriminating power of $LiteBIRD$ will reside in $BB$ angular power spectra rather than in $TB$ and $EB$ correlations.

astro-ph.CO

Requirements on the gain calibration for LiteBIRD polarisation data with blind component separation

Future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments are primarily targeting a detection of the primordial $B$-mode polarisation. The faintness of this signal requires exquisite control of systematic effects which may bias the measurements. In this work, we derive requirements on the relative calibration accuracy of the overall polarisation gain ($Δg_ν$) for LiteBIRD experiment, through the application of the blind Needlet Internal Linear Combination (NILC) foreground-cleaning method. We find that minimum variance techniques, as NILC, are less affected by gain calibration uncertainties than a parametric approach, which requires a proper modelling of these instrumental effects. The tightest constraints are obtained for frequency channels where the CMB signal is relatively brighter (166 GHz channel, $Δ{g}_ν\approx 0.16 \%$), while, with a parametric approach, the strictest requirements were on foreground-dominated channels. We then propagate gain calibration uncertainties, corresponding to the derived requirements, into all frequency channels simultaneously. We find that the overall impact on the estimated $r$ is lower than the required budget for LiteBIRD by almost a factor $5$. The adopted procedure to derive requirements assumes a simple Galactic model. We therefore assess the robustness of obtained results against more realistic scenarios by injecting the gain calibration uncertainties, according to the requirements, into LiteBIRD simulated maps and assuming intermediate- and high-complexity sky models. In this case, we employ the so-called Multi-Clustering NILC (MC-NILC) foreground-cleaning pipeline and obtain that the impact of gain calibration uncertainties on $r$ is lower than the LiteBIRD gain systematics budget for the intermediate-complexity sky model. For the high-complexity case, instead, it would be necessary to tighten the requirements by a factor $1.8$.

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. II. CIB monopole measurements from COBE-DIRBE through global Bayesian analysis

We derive new constraints on the CIB monopole spectrum from a set of reprocessed COBE-DIRBE sky maps that have lower instrumental and astrophysical contamination than the legacy DIRBE maps. These maps have been generated through a global Bayesian analysis framework that simultaneously fits cosmological, astrophysical, and instrumental parameters, as described in a series of papers collectively referred to as Cosmoglobe DR2. We have applied this method to the DIRBE TODs, complemented by selected HFI and FIRAS sky maps to break key astrophysical degeneracies, as well as WISE and Gaia compact object catalogs. In this paper, we focus on the CIB monopole constraints that result from this work. We report positive detections of an isotropic signal in six out of the ten DIRBE bands (1.25, 2.2, 3.5, 100, 140, and 240 $\mathrm{μm}$). For the 2.2 $μ$m channel, we find an amplitude of $10.2\pm1.2\,\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, 74 % lower than that reported from the official DIRBE maps. For the 240 $μ\mathrm{m}$ channel, we find $6\pm3\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, 56 % lower than the official DIRBE release. We interpret these lower values as resulting from improved zodiacal light and Galactic foreground modeling. For the bands between 4.9 and 60 $μ\mathrm{m}$, the presence of excess radiation in solar-centric coordinates precludes the definition of lower limits. However, the analysis still provides well-defined upper limits. For the 12 $μ\mathrm{m}$ channel, we find an upper 95 % confidence limit of 55 $\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, more than a factor of eight lower than the corresponding legacy result of 468 $\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$. The results presented in this paper redefine the state-of-the-art CIB monopole constraints from COBE-DIRBE, and provide a real-world illustration of the power of global end-to-end analysis of multiple complementary datasets.

astro-ph.CO

Cosmoglobe DR2. I. Global Bayesian analysis of COBE-DIRBE

We present the first global Bayesian analysis of the time-ordered DIRBE data within the Cosmoglobe framework, building on the same methodology that has previously been successfully applied to Planck LFI and WMAP. These data are analyzed jointly with COBE-FIRAS, Gaia, Planck HFI, and WISE, allowing for more accurate instrumental and astrophysical characterization than possible through single-experiment analysis. This paper provides an overview of the analysis pipeline and main results, and we present and characterize a new set of zodiacal light subtracted mission average (ZSMA) DIRBE maps spanning 1.25 to 240 $μ$m. A novel aspect of this processing is the characterization and removal of excess radiation between 4.9 and 60$\,μ$m that appears static in solar-centric coordinates. The DR2 ZSMA maps have several advantages with respect to the previously available maps, including 1) lower zodiacal light (and possibly straylight) residuals; 2) better determined zero-levels; 3) natively HEALPix tessellated maps with a $7'$ pixel size; 4) nearly white noise at pixel scales; and 5) a more complete and accurate noise characterization established through the combination of MCMC samples and half-mission maps. In addition, because the model has been simultaneously fitted with both DIRBE and HFI data, this is the first consistent unification of the infrared and CMB wavelength ranges into one global sky model covering 100 GHz to 1 $μ$m. However, even though the new maps are improved with respect to the official maps, and should be preferred for most future analyses that require DIRBE sky maps, they still exhibit non-negligible zodiacal light residuals between 12 and 60$\,μ$m. Further improvements should be made through joint analysis with complementary infrared experiments such IRAS, AKARI, WISE and SPHEREx, and releasing the full combined potential of all these powerful infrared observatories.

astro-ph.CO

The LiteBIRD mission to explore cosmic inflation

LiteBIRD, the next-generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment, aims for a launch in Japan's fiscal year 2032, marking a major advancement in the exploration of primordial cosmology and fundamental physics. Orbiting the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2, this JAXA-led strategic L-class mission will conduct a comprehensive mapping of the CMB polarization across the entire sky. During its 3-year mission, LiteBIRD will employ three telescopes within 15 unique frequency bands (ranging from 34 through 448 GHz), targeting a sensitivity of 2.2\,$μ$K-arcmin and a resolution of 0.5$^\circ$ at 100\,GHz. Its primary goal is to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ with an uncertainty $δr = 0.001$, including systematic errors and margin. If $r \geq 0.01$, LiteBIRD expects to achieve a $>5σ$ detection in the $\ell=$2-10 and $\ell=$11-200 ranges separately, providing crucial insight into the early Universe. We describe LiteBIRD's scientific objectives, the application of systems engineering to mission requirements, the anticipated scientific impact, and the operations and scanning strategies vital to minimizing systematic effects. We will also highlight LiteBIRD's synergies with concurrent CMB projects.

astro-ph.IM

Optimal bolometer transfer function deconvolution for CMB experiments through maximum likelihood mapmaking

We revisit the impact of finite time responses of bolometric detectors used for deep observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Until now, bolometer transfer functions have been accounted for through a two-step procedure by first deconvolving an estimate of their Fourier-space representation from the raw time-ordered data (TOD), and then averaging the deconvolved TOD into pixelized maps. However, for many experiments, including the Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI), it is necessary to apply an additional low-pass filter to avoid an excessive noise boost, which leads to an asymmetric effective beam. In this paper we demonstrate that this effect can be avoided if the transfer function deconvolution and pixelization operations are performed simultaneously through integrated maximum likelihood mapmaking. The resulting algorithm is structurally identical to the artDeco algorithm introduced by Keihänen & Reinecke (2012) for beam deconvolution. We illustrate the relevance of this method with simulated Planck HFI 143 GHz data, and find that the resulting effective beam is both more symmetric than with the two-step procedure, resulting in a sky-averaged ellipticity that is 64 % lower, and an effective beam full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) that is 2.3 % smaller. Similar improvements are expected for any other bolometer-based CMB experiments with long time constants.

astro-ph.CO

The first degree-scale starlight-polarization-based tomography map of the magnetized interstellar medium

We present the first degree-scale tomography map of the dusty magnetized interstellar medium (ISM) from stellar polarimetry and distance measurements. We used the RoboPol polarimeter at Skinakas Observatory to conduct a survey of starlight polarization in a region of the sky of 4 square degrees. We propose a Bayesian method to decompose the stellar-polarization source field along the distance to invert the 3D volume occupied by the observed stars. We used it to obtain the first 3D map of the dusty magnetized ISM. Specifically, we produced a tomography map of the orientation of the plane-of-sky (POS) component of the magnetic field threading the diffuse, dusty regions responsible for the stellar polarization. For the targeted region centered on Galactic coordinates $(l,b) \approx (103.3^\circ, 22.3^\circ)$, we identified several ISM clouds. Most of the lines of sight intersect more than one cloud. A very nearby component was detected in the foreground of a dominant component from which most of the polarization signal comes. Farther clouds, with a distance of up to 2~kpc, were similarly detected. Some of them likely correspond to intermediate-velocity clouds seen in HI spectra in this region of the sky. We found that the orientation of the POS component of the magnetic field changes along distance for most of the lines of sight. Our study demonstrates that starlight polarization data coupled to distance measures have the power to reveal the great complexity of the dusty magnetized ISM in 3D and, in particular, to provide local measurements of the POS component of the magnetic field. This demonstrates that the inversion of large data volumes, as expected from the PASIPHAE survey, will provide the necessary means to move forward in the modeling of the Galactic magnetic field and of the dusty magnetized ISM as a contaminant in observations of the cosmic microwave background polarization.

astro-ph.GA