arXiv subjects

Andrew Jaffe

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew Jaffe.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

The EBEX Cryostat and Supporting Electronics

We describe the cryostat and supporting electronics for the EBEX experiment. EBEX is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to measure the B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The instrument includes a 1.5 meter Gregorian-type telescope and 1432 bolometric transition edge sensor detectors operating at 0.3 K. Electronics for monitoring temperatures and controlling cryostat refrigerators is read out over CANbus. A timing system ensures the data from all subsystems is accurately synchronized. EBEX completed an engineering test flight in June 2009 during which the cryogenics and supporting electronics performed according to predictions. The temperatures of the cryostat were stable, and an analysis of a subset of the data finds no scan synchronous signal in the cryostat temperatures. Preparations are underway for an Antarctic flight.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2009

Observing the Evolution of the Universe

How did the universe evolve? The fine angular scale (l>1000) temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB are a Rosetta stone for understanding the evolution of the universe. Through detailed measurements one may address everything from the physics of the birth of the universe to the history of star formation and the process by which galaxies formed. One may in addition track the evolution of the dark energy and discover the net neutrino mass. We are at the dawn of a new era in which hundreds of square degrees of sky can be mapped with arcminute resolution and sensitivities measured in microKelvin. Acquiring these data requires the use of special purpose telescopes such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), located in Chile, and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). These new telescopes are outfitted with a new generation of custom mm-wave kilo-pixel arrays. Additional instruments are in the planning stages.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2007

Imprints of spherical non-trivial topologies on the CMB

The apparent low power in the CMB temperature anisotropy power spectrum derived from WMAP motivated us to consider the possibility of a non-trivial topology. We focus on some simple spherical multi-connected manifolds (Quaternionic, Octahedral, Truncated Cube and Poincare spaces) and discuss their implications for the CMB in terms of the power spectrum, maps and the correlation matrix. We also perform Bayesian model comparison against the fiducial best-fit LCDM based both on the power spectrum and the correlation matrix to assess their statistical significance. We find that the first year power spectrum shows a slight preference for the Truncated Cube space, but the 3-year data show no evidence for any of these spaces.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

An estimate of Ω_m without priors

Using mean relative peculiar velocity measurements for pairs of galaxies, we estimate the cosmological density parameter $Ω_m$ and the amplitude of density fluctuations $σ_8$. Our results suggest that our statistic is a robust and reproducible measure of the mean pairwise velocity and thereby the $Ω_m$ parameter. We get $Ω_m = 0.30^{+0.17}_{-0.07}$ and $σ_8 = 1.13^{+0.22}_{-0.23}$. These estimates do not depend on prior assumptions on the adiabaticity of the initial density fluctuations, the ionization history, or the values of other cosmological parameters.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1998

The WOMBAT Challenge: A "Hounds and Hares" Exercise for Cosmology

The Wavelength-Oriented Microwave Background Analysis Team (WOMBAT) is constructing microwave skymaps which will be more realistic than previous simulations. Our foreground models represent a considerable improvement: where spatial templates are available for a given foreground, we predict the flux and spectral index of that component at each place on the sky and estimate the uncertainties in these quantities. We will produce maps containing simulated Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies combined with all major expected foreground components. The simulated maps will be provided to the cosmology community as the WOMBAT Challenge, a "hounds and hares" exercise where such maps can be analyzed to extract cosmological parameters by scientists who are unaware of their input values. This exercise will test the efficacy of current foreground subtraction, power spectrum analysis, and parameter estimation techniques and will help identify the areas most in need of progress.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1998

Observational Constraints on Microwave Anisotropy from Point Sources

Applying basic physical principles to recent observational results, we derive upper and lower limits on microwave anisotropy from point sources over the range of frequencies 10-1000 GHz. We examine the level of noise in the observations as a possible indication of source confusion at subarcminute scales. We also derive an upper limit on microwave anisotropy caused by the sources responsible for the Far-Infrared Background radiation detected in FIRAS data. Our upper limit on point source confusion of DeltaT/T=10^{-5} for a 10' beam at 100 GHz would cause severe foreground contamination for CMB anisotropy observations, although the actual contamination level is probably much lower. This upper limit constrains the long-feared possibility of an undetected population of sources with emission peaking near 100 GHz. Source detections closer to 100 GHz are needed to improve our knowledge of galaxy evolution at high redshift and to predict the level of point source confusion.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1997

Likelihood Analysis of Galaxy Surveys

One of the major goals of cosmological observations is to test theories of structure formation. The most straightforward way to carry out such tests is to compute the likelihood function L, the probability of getting the data given the theory. We write down this function for a general galaxy survey. The full likelihood function is very complex, depending on all of the $n$-point functions of the theory under consideration. Even in the simplest case, where only the two point function is non-vanishing (Gaussian perturbations), L cannot be calculated exactly, primarily because of the Poisson nature of the galaxy distribution. Here we expand L about the (trivial) zero correlation limit. As a first application, we take the binned values of the two point function as free parameters and show that L peaks at $(DD - DR + RR)/DD$. Using Monte Carlo techniques, we compare this estimator with the traditional $DD/DR$ and Landy & Szalay estimators. More generally, the success of this expansion should pave the way for further applications of the likelihood function.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Bending of Light by Gravity Waves

We describe the statistical properties of light rays propagating though a random sea of gravity waves and compare with the case for scalar metric perturbations from density inhomogeneities. For scalar fluctuations the deflection angle grows as the square-root of the path length $D$ in the manner of a random walk, and the rms displacement of a ray from the unperturbed trajectory grows as $D^{3/2}$. For gravity waves the situation is very different. The mean square deflection angle remains finite and is dominated by the effect of the metric fluctuations at the ends of the ray, and the mean square displacement grows only as the logarithm of the path length. In terms of power spectra, the displacement for scalar perturbations has $P(k) \propto 1/ k^4$ while for gravity waves the trajectories of photons have $P(k) \propto 1/k$ which is a scale-invariant or `flicker-noise' process, and departures from rectilinear motion are suppressed, relative to the scalar case, by a factor $\sim (λ/ D)^{3/2}$ where $λ$ is the characteristic scale of the metric fluctuations and $D$ is the path length. This result casts doubt on the viability of some recent proposals for detecting or constraining the gravity wave background by astronomical measurements.

astro-ph↗