arXiv subjects

A. J. Banday

Publications and source records attributed to A. J. Banday.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Scale-dependent non-Gaussianities in the WMAP data as identified by using surrogates and scaling indices

We present a model-independent investigation of the WMAP data with respect to scale- dependent non-Gaussianities (NGs) by employing the method of constrained randomization. For generating so-called surrogate maps a shuffling scheme is applied to the Fourier phases of the original data, which allows to test for the presence of higher order correlations (HOCs) on well-defined scales. Using scaling indices as test statistics we find highly significant signatures for non-Gaussianities when considering all scales. We test for NGs in the bands l = [2,20], l = [20,60], l = [60,120] and l = [120,300]. We find highly significant signatures for non-Gaussianities and ecliptic hemispherical asymmetries for l = [2, 20]. We also obtain highly significant deviations from Gaussianity for the band l = [120,300]. The result for the full l-range can be interpreted as a superposition of the signatures found in the bands l = [2, 20] and l = [120, 300]. We find remarkably similar results when analyzing different ILC-like maps. We perform a set of tests to investigate if the detected anomalies can be explained by systematics. While no test can convincingly rule out the intrinsic nature of the anomalies for the low l case, the ILC map making procedure and/or residual noise in the maps can also lead to NGs at small scales. Our investigations prove that there are phase correlations in the WMAP data of the CMB. In the absence of an explanation in terms of Galactic foregrounds or known systematic artefacts, the signatures at low l must so far be taken to be cosmological at high significance. These findings strongly disagree with predictions of isotropic cosmologies with single field slow roll inflation. The task is now to elucidate the origin of the phase correlations and to understand the physical processes leading to these scale-dependent non-Gaussianities - if systematics as cause for them must be ruled out.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: Statistical properties of extragalactic radio sources in the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue

The data reported in Planck's Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) are exploited to measure the number counts (dN/dS) of extragalactic radio sources at 30, 44, 70, 100, 143 and 217 GHz. Due to the full-sky nature of the catalogue, this measurement extends to the rarest and brightest sources in the sky. At lower frequencies (30, 44, and 70 GHz) our counts are in very good agreement with estimates based on WMAP data, being somewhat deeper at 30 and 70 GHz, and somewhat shallower at 44 GHz. Planck's source counts at 143 and 217 GHz join smoothly with the fainter ones provided by the SPT and ACT surveys over small fractions of the sky. An analysis of source spectra, exploiting Planck's uniquely broad spectral coverage, finds clear evidence of a steepening of the mean spectral index above about 70 GHz. This implies that, at these frequencies, the contamination of the CMB power spectrum by radio sources below the detection limit is significantly lower than previously estimated.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: The Planck View of Nearby Galaxies

The all-sky coverage of the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) provides an unsurpassed survey of galaxies at submillimetre (submm) wavelengths, representing a major improvement in the numbers of galaxies detected, as well as the range of far-IR/submm wavelengths over which they have been observed. We here present the first results on the properties of nearby galaxies using these data. We match the ERCSC catalogue to IRAS-detected galaxies in the Imperial IRAS Faint Source Redshift Catalogue (IIFSCz), so that we can measure the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these objects from 60 to 850 microns. This produces a list of 1717 galaxies with reliable associations between Planck and IRAS, from which we select a subset of 468 for SED studies, namely those with strong detections in the three highest frequency Planck bands and no evidence of cirrus contamination. The SEDs are fitted using parametric dust models to determine the range of dust temperatures and emissivities. We find evidence for colder dust than has previously been found in external galaxies, with T<20K. Such cold temperatures are found using both the standard single temperature dust model with variable emissivity beta, or a two dust temperature model with beta fixed at 2. We also compare our results to studies of distant submm galaxies (SMGs) which have been claimed to contain cooler dust than their local counterparts. We find that including our sample of 468 galaxies significantly reduces the distinction between the two populations. Fits to SEDs of selected objects using more sophisticated templates derived from radiative transfer models confirm the presence of the colder dust found through parameteric fitting. We thus conclude that cold (T<20K) dust is a significant and largely unexplored component of many nearby galaxies.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: The Galactic Cold Core Population revealed by the first all-sky survey

We present the statistical properties of the first version of the Cold Core Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO), in terms of their spatial distribution, temperature, distance, mass, and morphology. We also describe the statistics of the Early Cold Core Catalogue (ECC, delivered with the Early Release Compact Source Catalogue, ERCSC) that is the subset of the 915 most reliable detections of the complete catalogue. We have used the CoCoCoDeT algorithm to extract 10783 cold sources. Temperature and dust emission spectral index β values are derived using the fluxes in the IRAS 100 \mum band and the three highest frequency Planck bands. Temperature spans from 7K to 17K, and peaks around 13K. Data are not consistent with a constant value of β over the all temperature range. β ranges from 1.4 to 2.8 with a mean value around 2.1, and several possible scenarios are possible, including β(T) and the effect of multiple T components folded into the measurements. For one third of the objects the distances are obtained. Most of the detections are within 2 kpc in the Solar neighbourhood, but a few are at distances greater than 4 kpc. The cores are distributed from the deep Galactic plane, despite the confusion, to high latitudes (>30$^{\circle}$). The associated mass estimates range from 1 to $10^5$ solar masses. Using their physical properties these cold sources are shown to be cold clumps, defined as the intermediate cold sub-structures between clouds and cores. These cold clumps are not isolated but mostly organized in filaments associated with molecular clouds. The Cold Core Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO) is the first unbiased all-sky catalogue of cold objects. It gives an unprecedented statistical view to the properties of these potential pre-stellar clumps and offers a unique possibility for their classification in terms of their intrinsic properties and environment.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: Origin of the submm excess dust emission in the Magellanic Clouds

The integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud appear significantly flatter than expected from dust models based on their FIR and radio emission. The origin of this millimetre excess is still unexplained, and is here investigated using the Planck data. The background CMB contribution is subtracted using an ILC method performed locally around the galaxies. The foreground emission from the Milky Way is subtracted. After subtraction, the emission of both galaxies correlates closely with the gas emission of the LMC and SMC. The millimetre excess in the LMC can be explained by CMB fluctuations, but a significant excess is still present in the SMC SED. The Planck and IRIS data at 100 micron are combined to produce thermal dust temperature and optical depth maps of the two galaxies. The LMC temperature map shows the presence of a warm inner arm already found with the Spitzer data, but also shows the existence of a previously unidentified cold outer arm. Several cold regions are found along this arm, some of which are associated with known molecular clouds. The average emissivity spectral index is found to be consistent with beta=1.5 and beta=1.2 below 500 microns for the LMC and SMC respectively, significantly flatter than the values observed in the Milky Way. Furthermore, there is evidence in the SMC for a further flattening of the SED in the sub-mm. The spatial distribution of the millimetre dust excess in the SMC follows the gas and thermal dust distribution. Different models are explored in order to fit the dust emission in the SMC. It is concluded that the millimetre excess is unlikely to be caused by very cold dust emission and that it could be due to a combination of spinning dust. emission and thermal dust emission by more amorphous dust grains than those present in our Galaxy.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: All sky temperature and dust optical depth from Planck and IRAS: Constraints on the "dark gas" in our galaxy

We construct an all-sky map of the apparent temperature and optical depth of thermal dust emission using the Planck-HFI and IRAS data. The optical depth maps are correlated to tracers of the atomic and molecular gas. The correlation is linear in the lowest column density regions at high galactic latitudes. At high NH, the correlation is consistent with that of the lowest NH. In the intermediate NH range, we observe departure from linearity, with the dust optical depth in excess to the correlation. We attribute this excess emission to thermal emission by dust associated with a Dark-Gas phase, undetected in the available HI and CO measurements. We show the 2D spatial distribution of the Dark-Gas in the solar neighborhood and show that it extends around known molecular regions traced by CO. The average dust emissivity in the HI phase in the solar neighborhood follows roughly a power law distribution with beta = 1.8 all the way down to 3 mm, although the SED flattens slightly in the millimetre. The threshold for the existence of the Dark-Gas is found at NH = (8.0\pm 0.58) 10^{20} Hcm-2. Assuming the same dust emissivity at high frequencies for the dust in the atomic and molecular phases leads to an average XCO = (2.54\pm0.13) 10^{20} H2cm-2/(K km s-1). The mass of Dark-Gas is found to be 28% of the atomic gas and 118% of the CO emitting gas in the solar neighborhood. A possible origin for the Dark-Gas is the existence of a dark molecular phase, where H2 survives photodissociation but CO does not. The observed transition for the onset of this phase in the solar neighborhood (AV = 0.4 mag) appears consistent with recent theoretical predictions. We also discuss the possibility that up to half of the Dark-Gas could be in atomic form, due to optical depth effects in the HI measurements.

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arXiv2011

Planck Early Results: The submillimetre properties of a sample of Galactic cold clumps

(abridged) We perform a detailed investigation of sources from the Cold Cores Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO). Our goal is to probe the reliability of the detections, validate the separation between warm and cold dust emission components, provide the first glimpse at the nature, internal morphology and physical characterictics of the Planck-detected sources. We focus on a sub-sample of ten sources from the C3PO list, selected to sample different environments, from high latitude cirrus to nearby (150pc) and remote (2kpc) molecular complexes. We present Planck surface brightness maps and derive the dust temperature, emissivity spectral index, and column densities of the fields. With the help of higher resolution Herschel and AKARI continuum observations and molecular line data, we investigate the morphology of the sources and the properties of the substructures at scales below the Planck beam size.

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arXiv2011

Planck early results: first assessment of the High Frequency Instrument in-flight performance

The Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI) is designed to measure the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background and galactic foregrounds in six wide bands centered at 100, 143, 217, 353, 545 and 857 GHz at an angular resolution of 10' (100 GHz), 7' (143 GHz), and 5' (217 GHz and higher). HFI has been operating flawlessly since launch on 14 May 2009. The bolometers cooled to 100 mK as planned. The settings of the readout electronics, such as the bolometer bias current, that optimize HFI's noise performance on orbit are nearly the same as the ones chosen during ground testing. Observations of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn verified both the optical system and the time response of the detection chains. The optical beams are close to predictions from physical optics modeling. The time response of the detection chains is close to pre-launch measurements. The detectors suffer from an unexpected high flux of cosmic rays related to low solar activity. Due to the redundancy of Planck's observations strategy, the removal of a few percent of data contaminated by glitches does not affect significantly the sensitivity. The cosmic rays heat up significantly the bolometer plate and the modulation on periods of days to months of the heat load creates a common drift of all bolometer signals which do not affect the scientific capabilities. Only the high energy cosmic rays showers induce inhomogeneous heating which is a probable source of low frequency noise.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

Planck early results: Cluster Sunyaev-Zeldovich optical scaling relations

We present the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) signal-to-richness scaling relation (Y500-N200) for the MaxBCG cluster catalogue. Employing a multi-frequency matched filter on the Planck sky maps, we measure the SZ signal for each cluster by adapting the filter according to weak-lensing calibrated mass-richness relations (N200-M500). We bin our individual measurements and detect the SZ signal down to the lowest richness systems (N200=10) with high significance, achieving a detection of the SZ signal in systems with mass as low as M500~5e13 Msolar. The observed Y500-N200 relation is well modeled by a power law over the full richness range. It has a lower normalisation at given N200 than predicted based on X-ray models and published mass-richness relations. An X-ray subsample, however, does conform to the predicted scaling, and model predictions do reproduce the relation between our measured bin-average SZ signal and measured bin-average X-ray luminosities. At fixed richness, we find an intrinsic dispersion in the Y500-N200 relation of 60% rising to of order 100% at low richness. Thanks to its all-sky coverage, Planck provides observations for more than 13,000 MaxBCG clusters and an unprecedented SZ/optical data set, extending the list of known cluster scaling laws to include SZ-optical properties. The data set offers essential clues for models of galaxy formation. Moreover, the lower normalisation of the SZ-mass relation implied by the observed SZ-richness scaling has important consequences for cluster physics and cosmological studies with SZ clusters.

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arXiv2010

The primordial non-Gaussianity of local type (f_NL) in the WMAP 5-year data: the length distribution of CMB skeleton

We present skeleton studies of non-Gaussianity in the CMB temperature anisotropy observed in the WMAP5 data. The local skeleton is traced on the 2D sphere by cubic spline interpolation which leads to more accurate estimation of the intersection positions between the skeleton and the secondary pixels than conventional linear interpolation. We demonstrate that the skeleton-based estimator of non-Gaussianity of the local type (f_NL) - the departure of the length distribution from the corresponding Gaussian expectation - yields an unbiased and sufficiently converged f_NL-likelihood. We analyse the skeleton statistics in the WMAP5 combined V- and W-band data outside the Galactic base-mask determined from the KQ75 sky-coverage. The results are consistent with Gaussian simulations of the the best-fitting cosmological model, but deviate from the previous results determined using the WMAP1 data. We show that it is unlikely that the improved skeleton tracing method, the omission of Q-band data, the modification of the foreground-template fitting method or the absence of 6 extended regions in the new mask contribute to such a deviation. However, the application of the Kp0 base-mask in data processing does improve the consistency with the WMAP1 results. The f_NL-likelihoods of the data are estimated at 9 different smoothing levels. It is unexpected that the best-fit values show positive correlation with the smoothing scales. Further investigation argues against a point-source or goodness-of-fit explanation but finds that about 30% of either Gaussian or f_NL samples having better goodness-of-fit than the WMAP5 show a similar correlation. We present the estimate f_NL=47.3+/-34.9 (1sigma error) determined from the first four smoothing angles and f_NL=76.8+/-43.1 for the combination of all nine. The former result may be overestimated at the 0.21sigma-level because of point sources.

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arXiv2010

Probing non-Gaussianities on Large Scales in WMAP5 and WMAP7 Data using Surrogates

Probing Gaussianity represents one of the key questions in modern cosmology, because it allows to discriminate between different models of inflation. We test for large-scale non-Gaussianities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in a model-independent way. To this end, so-called first and second order surrogates are generated by first shuffling the Fourier phases belonging to the scales not of interest and then shuffling the remaining phases for the length scales under study. Using scaling indices as test statistics we find highly significant signatures for both non-Gaussianities and asymmetries on large scales for the WMAP data of the CMB. We find remarkably similar results when analyzing different ILC-maps based on the WMAP five and seven year data. Such features being independent from the map-making procedure would disfavor the fundamental principle of isotropy as well as canonical single-field slow-roll inflation - unless there is some undiscovered systematic error in the collection or reduction of the CMB data or yet unknown foreground contributions.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Joint 3D modelling of the polarized Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust foreground diffuse emission

We present for the first time a coherent model of the polarized Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust emissions which are the main diffuse foreground for the measurement of the polarized power spectra of the CMB fluctuations with the Planck satellite mission. We produce 3D models of the Galactic magnetic field including regular and turbulent components, and of the distribution of matter in the Galaxy, relativistic electrons and dust grains. By integrating along the line of sight we construct maps of the polarized Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust emission for each of these models and compare them to currently available data. We consider the 408 MHz all-sky continuum survey, the 23 GHz band of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the 353 GHz Archeops data.}{The best-fit parameters obtained are consistent with previous estimates in the literature based only on synchrotron emission and pulsar rotation measurements. They allows us to reproduce the large scale structures observed on the data. Poorly understood local Galactic structures and turbulence make difficult an accurate reconstruction of the observations in the Galactic plane. Finally, using the best-fit model we are able to estimate the expected polarized foreground contamination at the Planck frequency bands. For the CMB bands, 70, 100, 143 and 217 GHz, at high Galactic latitudes although the CMB signal dominates in general, a significant foreground contribution is expected at large angular scales. In particular, this contribution will dominate the CMB signal for the B modes expected from realistic models of a background of primordial gravitational waves.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Modelling the Galactic Magnetic Field on the Plane in 2D

We present a method for parametric modelling of the physical components of the Galaxy's magnetised interstellar medium, simulating the observables, and mapping out the likelihood space using a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo analysis. We then demonstrate it using total and polarised synchrotron emission data as well as rotation measures of extragalactic sources. With these three datasets, we define and study three components of the magnetic field: the large-scale coherent field, the small-scale isotropic random field, and the ordered field. In this first paper, we use only data along the Galactic plane and test a simple 2D logarithmic spiral model for the magnetic field that includes a compression and a shearing of the random component giving rise to an ordered component. We demonstrate with simulations that the method can indeed constrain multiple parameters yielding measures of, for example, the ratios of the magnetic field components. Though subject to uncertainties in thermal and cosmic ray electron densities and depending on our particular model parametrisation, our preliminary analysis shows that the coherent component is a small fraction of the total magnetic field and that an ordered component comparable in strength to the isotropic random component is required to explain the polarisation fraction of synchrotron emission. We outline further work to extend this type of analysis to study the magnetic spiral arm structure, the details of the turbulence as well as the 3D structure of the magnetic field.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2010

The two-and three-point correlation functions of the polarized five-year WMAP sky maps

We present the two- and three-point real space correlation functions of the five-year WMAP sky maps, and compare the observed functions to simulated LCDM concordance model ensembles. In agreement with previously published results, we find that the temperature correlation functions are consistent with expectations. However, the pure polarization correlation functions are acceptable only for the 33GHz band map; the 41, 61, and 94 GHz band correlation functions all exhibit significant large-scale excess structures. Further, these excess structures very closely match the correlation functions of the two (synchrotron and dust) foreground templates used to correct the WMAP data for galactic contamination, with a cross-correlation statistically significant at the 2sigma-3sigma confidence level. The correlation is slightly stronger with respect to the thermal dust template than with the synchrotron template.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Planck pre-launch status: the Planck-LFI programme

This paper provides an overview of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) programme within the ESA Planck mission. The LFI instrument has been developed to produce high precision maps of the microwave sky at frequencies in the range 27-77 GHz, below the peak of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation spectrum. The scientific goals are described, ranging from fundamental cosmology to Galactic and extragalactic astrophysics. The instrument design and development are outlined, together with the model philosophy and testing strategy. The instrument is presented in the context of the Planck mission. The LFI approach to ground and inflight calibration is described. We also describe the LFI ground segment. We present the results of a number of tests demonstrating the capability of the LFI data processing centre (DPC) to properly reduce and analyse LFI flight data, from telemetry information to calibrated and cleaned time ordered data, sky maps at each frequency (in temperature and polarization), component emission maps (CMB and diffuse foregrounds), catalogs for various classes of sources (the Early Release Compact Source Catalogue and the Final Compact Source Catalogue). The organization of the LFI consortium is briefly presented as well as the role of the core team in data analysis and scientific exploitation. All tests carried out on the LFI flight model demonstrate the excellent performance of the instrument and its various subunits. The data analysis pipeline has been tested and its main steps verified. In the first three months after launch, the commissioning, calibration, performance, and verification phases will be completed, after which Planck will begin its operational life, in which LFI will have an integral part.

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arXiv2009

New insights into foreground analysis of the WMAP five-year data using FASTICA

In this paper, we present a foreground analysis of the WMAP 5-year data using the FASTICA algorithm, improving on the treatment of the WMAP 3-year data in Bottino et al 2008. We revisit the nature of the free-free spectrum with the emphasis on attempting to confirm or otherwise the spectral feature claimed in Dobbler et al 2008b and explained in terms of spinning dust emission in the warm ionised medium. With the application of different Galactic cuts, the index is always flatter than the canonical value of 2.14 except for the Kp0 mask which is steeper. Irrespective of this, we can not confirm the presence of any feature in the free-free spectrum. We experiment with a more extensive approach to the cleaning of the data, introduced in connection with the iterative application of FASTICA. We confirm the presence of a residual foreground whose spatial distribution is concentrated along the Galactic plane, with pronounced emission near the Galactic center. This is consistent with the WMAP haze detected in Finkbeiner 2004. Finally, we attempted to perform the same analysis on full-sky maps. The code returns good results even for those regions where the cross-talk among the components is high. However, slightly better results in terms of the possibility of reconstructing a full-sky CMB map, are achieved with a simultaneous analysis of both the five WMAP maps and foreground templates. Nonetheless, some residuals are still present and detected in terms of an excess in the CMB power spectrum, on small angular scales. Therefore, a minimal mask for the brightest regions of the plane is necessary, and has been defined.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Frequentist comparison of CMB local extrema statistics in the five-year WMAP data with two anisotropic cosmological models

We present local extrema studies of two models that introduce a preferred direction into the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature field. In particular, we make a frequentist comparison of the one- and two-point statistics for the dipole modulation and ACW models with data from the five-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This analysis is motivated by previously revealed anomalies in the WMAP data, and particularly the difference in the statistical nature of the temperature anisotropies when analysed in hemispherical partitions. The analysis of the one-point statistics indicates that the previously determined hemispherical variance difficulties can be apparently overcome by a dipole modulation field, but new inconsistencies arise if the mean and the l-dependence of the statistics are considered. The two-point correlation functions of the local extrema, the temperature pair product and the point-point spatial pair-count, demonstrate that the impact of such a modulation is to over-`asymmetrise' the temperature field on smaller scales than the wave-length of the dipole or quadrupole, and this is disfavored by the observed data.The results from the ACW model predictions, however, are consistent with the standard isotropic hypothesis. The two-point analysis confirms that the impact of this type of violation of isotropy on the temperature extrema statistics is relatively weak. From this work, we conclude that a model with more spatial structure than the dipole modulated or rotational-invariance breaking models are required to fully explain the observed large-scale anomalies in the WMAP data.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Non-Gaussian Signatures in the five-year WMAP data as identified with isotropic scaling indices

We continue the analysis of non-Gaussianities in the CMB by means of the scaling index method (SIM, Raeth, Schuecker & Banday 2007) by applying this method on the 5-year WMAP data. We compare each of the results with 1000 Monte Carlo simulations mimicing the Gaussian properties of the best fit $ΛCDM$-model. Based on the scaling indices, scale-dependent empirical probability distributions, moments of these distributions and $χ^2$-combinations of them are calculated, obtaining similar results as in the former analysis of the 3-year data: We derive evidence for non-Gaussianity with a probability of up to 97.3% for the mean when regarding the KQ75-masked full sky and summing up over all considered length scales by means of a diagonal $χ^2$-statistics. Looking at only the northern or southern hemisphere, we obtain up to 98.5% or 96.6%, respectively. For the standard deviation, these results appear as 95.6% for the full sky (99.7% north, 89.4% south) and for a $χ^2$-combination of both measurements as 97.4% (99.1% north, 95.5% south). By performing an analysis of rotated hemispheres, we detect an obvious asymmetry in the data. In addition to these investigations, we present a method of filling the mask with Gaussian noise to eliminate boundary effects caused by the mask. With the help of this technique, we identify several local features on the map, of which the most significant one turns out to be the well-known cold spot. When excluding all these spots from the analysis, the deviation from Gaussianity increases, which shows that the discovered local anomalies are not the reason of the global detection of non-Gaussianity, but actually were damping the deviations on average. Our analyses per band and per year suggest, however, that it is very unlikely that the detected anomalies are due to foreground effects.

astro-ph.CO↗