arXiv subjects

R. B. Barreiro

Publications and source records attributed to R. B. Barreiro.

At least 271 records · Page 15Linked to original sources

arXiv2006

Scalar quantities as detectors of non-Gaussianity on CMB maps

We study the power of several scalar quantities constructed on the sphere (presented in Monteserin et al. 2005) to detect non-Gaussianity on the temperature distribution of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The test has been performed using non-Gaussian CMB simulations with injected skewness or kurtosis generated through the Edgeworth expansion. We have also taken into account in the analysis the effect of anisotropic noise and the presence of a Galactic mask. We find that the best scalars to detect an excess of skewness in the simulations are the derivative of the gradient, the fractional isotropy, the Laplacian and the shape index. For the kurtosis case, the fractional anisotropy, the Laplacian and the determinant are the quantities that perform better.

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arXiv2006

Comparison of filters for the detection of point sources in Planck simulations

We study the detection of extragalactic point sources in two-dimensional flat simulations for all the frequencies of the forthcoming ESA's Planck mission. In this work we have used the most recent available templates of the microwave sky: as for the diffuse Galactic components and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich clusters we have used the ``Plank Reference Sky Model''; as for the extragalactic point sources, our simulations - which comprise all the source populations relevant in this frequency interval - are based on up-to-date cosmological evolution models for sources. To consistently compare the capabilities of different filters for the compilation of the - hopefully - most complete blind catalogue of point sources, we have obtained three catalogues by filtering the simulated sky maps with: the Matched Filter (MF), the Mexican Hat Wavelet (MHW1) and the Mexican Hat Wavelet 2 (MHW2), the first two members of the MHW Family. For the nine Planck frequencies we show the number of real and spurious detections and the percentage of spurious detections at different flux detection limits as well as the completeness level of the catalogues and the average errors in the estimation of the flux density of detected sources. Allowing a 5 % of spurious detections, we obtain the following number of detections by filtering with the MHW2 an area equivalent to half of the sky: 580 (30 GHz), 342 (44 GHz), 341 (70 GHz), 730 (100 GHz), 1130 (143 GHz), 1233 (217 GHz), 990 (353 GHz), 1025 (545 GHz) and 3183 (857 GHz). Our current results indicate that the MF and the MHW2 yield similar results, whereas the MHW1 performs worse in some cases and especially at very low fluxes. This is a relevant result, because we are able to obtain comparable results with the well known Matched Filter and with this specific wavelet, the MHW2, which is much easier to implement and use.

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arXiv2006

Non-Gaussianity in the Very Small Array CMB maps with Smooth-Goodness-of-fit tests

(Abridged) We have used the Rayner & Best (1989) smooth tests of goodness-of-fit to study the Gaussianity of the Very Small Array (VSA) data. Out of the 41 published VSA individual pointings dedicated to cosmological observations, 37 are found to be consistent with Gaussianity, whereas four pointings show deviations from Gaussianity. In two of them, these deviations can be explained as residual systematic effects of a few visibility points which, when corrected, have a negligible impact on the angular power spectrum. The non-Gaussianity found in the other two (adjacent) pointings seems to be associated to a local deviation of the power spectrum of these fields with respect to the common power spectrum of the complete data set, at angular scales of the third acoustic peak (l = 700-900). No evidence of residual systematics is found in this case, and unsubstracted point sources are not a plausible explanation either. If those visibilities are removed, a cosmological analysis based on this new VSA power spectrum alone shows no differences in the parameter constraints with respect to our published results, except for the physical baryon density, which decreases by 10 percent. Finally, the method has been also used to analyse the VSA observations in the Corona Borealis supercluster region (Genova-Santos et al. 2005), which show a strong decrement which cannot be explained as primordial CMB. Our method finds a clear deviation (99.82%) with respect to Gaussianity in the second-order moment of the distribution, and which can not be explained as systematic effects. A detailed study shows that the non-Gaussianity is produced in scales of l~500, and that this deviation is intrinsic to the data (in the sense that can not be explained in terms of a Gaussian field with a different power spectrum).

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arXiv2006

Effect of component separation on the temperature distribution of the CMB

We present a study of the effect of component separation on the recovered cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature distribution, considering Gaussian and non-Gaussian input CMB maps. First, we extract the CMB component from simulated Planck data (in small patches of the sky) using the maximum entropy method (MEM), Wiener filter (WF) and a method based on the subtraction of foreground templates plus a linear combination of frequency channels (LCFC). We then apply a wavelet-based method to study the Gaussianity of the recovered CMB and compare it with the same analysis for the input map. When the original CMB map is Gaussian (and assuming that point sources have been removed), we find that none of the methods introduce non-Gaussianity (NG) in the CMB reconstruction. On the contrary, if the input CMB map is non-Gaussian, all the studied methods produce a reconstructed CMB with lower detections of NG than the original map. This effect is mainly due to the presence of instrumental noise. In this case, MEM tends to produce slightly higher non-Gaussian detections in the reconstructed map than WF whereas the detections are lower for the LCFC. We have also studied the effect of point sources in the MEM reconstruction. If no attempt to remove point sources is performed, they clearly contaminate the CMB reconstruction, introducing spurious NG. When the brightest point sources are removed from the data using the Mexican Hat Wavelet, the Gaussian character of the CMB is preserved. However, when analysing larger regions of the sky, the variance of our estimators will be appreciably reduced and, in this case, we expect the point source residuals to introduce spurious NG in the CMB. Thus, a careful subtraction (or masking) of point source emission is crucial when studying the Gaussianity of the CMB.

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arXiv2006

An ultradeep submillimetre map: beneath the SCUBA confusion limit with lensing and robust source extraction

Extracting sources with low signal-to-noise from maps with structured background is a non-trivial task which has become important in studying the faint end of the submillimetre number counts. In this article we study source extraction from submillimetre jiggle-maps from the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) using the Mexican Hat Wavelet (MHW), an isotropic wavelet technique. As a case study we use a large (11.8 arcmin^2) jiggle-map of the galaxy cluster Abell 2218, with a 850um 1sigma r.m.s. sensitivity of 0.6-1mJy. We show via simulations that MHW is a powerful tool for reliable extraction of low signal-to-noise sources from SCUBA jiggle-maps and nine sources are detected in the A2218 850um image. Three of these sources are identified as images of a single background source with an unlensed flux of 0.8mJy. Further, two single-imaged sources also have unlensed fluxes <2mJy, below the blank-field confusion limit. In this ultradeep map, the individual sources detected resolve nearly all of the extragalactic background light at 850um, and the deep data allow to put an upper limit of 44 sources per arcmin^2 to 0.2mJy at 850um.

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arXiv2005

Techniques for compact source extraction on CMB maps

The detection of compact sources embedded in a background is a very common problem in many fields of Astronomy. In these lecture notes we present a review of different techniques developed for the detection and extraction of compact sources, with a especial focus on their application to the field of the cosmic microwave background radiation. In particular, we will consider the detection of extragalactic point sources and the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effects from clusters of galaxies.

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arXiv2005

Scalar statistics on the sphere: application to the CMB

A method to compute several scalar quantities of Cosmic Microwave Background maps on the sphere is presented. We consider here four type of scalars: the Hessian matrix scalars, the distortion scalars, the gradient related scalars and the curvature scalars. Such quantities are obtained directly from the spherical harmonic coefficients (alm) of the map. We also study the probability density function of these quantities for the case of a homogeneous and isotropic Gaussian field, which are functions of the power spectrum of the initial field. From these scalars it is posible to construct a new set of scalars which are independent of the power spectrum of the field. We test our results using simulations and find a good agreement between the theoretical probability density functions and those obtained from simulations. Therefore, these quantities are proposed to investigate the presence of non-Gaussian features in CMB maps. Finally, we show how to compute the scalars in presence of anisotropic noise and realistic masks.

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arXiv2005

Some comments on the note "Some comments on the paper 'Filter design for the detection of compact sources based on the Neyman-Pearson detector' by M. Lopez-Caniego et. al (2005, MNRAS 359, 993)" by R. Vio and P. Andreani (astroph/0509394)

In this note we stress the necessity of a careful check of the arguments used by Vio & Andreani (2005) (VA hereinafter) to criticise the superior performance of the biparametric scale adaptive filter (BSAF) with respect to the classic matched filter (MF) in the detection of sources on a random Gaussian background. In particular, we point out that a defective reading and understanding of previous works in the literature (Rice 1954; Barreiro et al. 2003; Lopez-Caniego et al. 2005) leads the authors of VA to the derivation of an incorrect formula and to some misleading conclusions.

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arXiv2005

Filter design for the detection of compact sources based on the Neyman-Pearson detector

This paper considers the problem of compact source detection on a Gaussian background in 1D. Two aspects of this problem are considered: the design of the detector and the filtering of the data. Our detection scheme is based on local maxima and it takes into account not only the amplitude but also the curvature of the maxima. A Neyman-Pearson test is used to define the region of acceptance, that is given by a sufficient linear detector that is independent on the amplitude distribution of the sources. We study how detection can be enhanced by means of linear filters with a scaling parameter and compare some of them (the Mexican Hat wavelet, the matched and the scale-adaptive filters). We introduce a new filter, that depends on two free parameters (biparametric scale-adaptive filter). The value of these two parameters can be determined, given the a priori pdf of the amplitudes of the sources, such that the filter optimizes the performance of the detector in the sense that it gives the maximum number of real detections once fixed the number density of spurious sources. The combination of a detection scheme that includes information on the curvature and a flexible filter that incorporates two free parameters (one of them a scaling) improves significantly the number of detections in some interesting cases. In particular, for the case of weak sources embedded in white noise the improvement with respect to the standard matched filter is of the order of 40%. Finally, an estimation of the amplitude of the source is introduced and it is proven that such an estimator is unbiased and it has maximum efficiency. We perform numerical simulations to test these theoretical ideas and conclude that the results of the simulations agree with the analytical ones.

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arXiv2005

A Bayesian approach to filter design: detection of compact sources

We consider filters for the detection and extraction of compact sources on a background. We make a one-dimensional treatment (though a generalization to two or more dimensions is possible) assuming that the sources have a Gaussian profile whereas the background is modeled by an homogeneous and isotropic Gaussian random field, characterized by a scale-free power spectrum. Local peak detection is used after filtering. Then, a Bayesian Generalized Neyman-Pearson test is used to define the region of acceptance that includes not only the amplification but also the curvature of the sources and the a priori probability distribution function of the sources. We search for an optimal filter between a family of Matched-type filters (MTF) modifying the filtering scale such that it gives the maximum number of real detections once fixed the number density of spurious sources. We have performed numerical simulations to test theoretical ideas.

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arXiv2005

Detection of point sources on two-dimensional images based on peaks

This article considers the detection of point sources in two dimensional astronomical images. The detection scheme we propose is based on peak statistics. We discuss the example of the detection of far galaxies in Cosmic Microwave Background experiments throughout the paper, although the method we present is totally general and can be used in many other fields of data analysis. We assume sources with a Gaussian profile --that is a fair approximation of the profile of a point source convolved with the detector beam in microwave experiments-- on a background modeled by a homogeneous and isotropic Gaussian random field characterized by a scale-free power spectrum. Point sources are enhanced with respect to the background by means of linear filters. After filtering, we identify local maxima and apply our detection scheme, a Neyman-Pearson detector that defines our region of acceptance based on the a priori pdf of the sources and the ratio of number densities. We study the different performances of some linear filters that have been used in this context in the literature: the Mexican Hat wavelet, the matched filter and the scale-adaptive filter. We consider as well an extension to two dimensions of the biparametric scale adaptive filter (BSAF). The BSAF depends on two parameters which are determined by maximizing the number density of real detections while fixing the number density of spurious detections. For our detection criterion the BSAF outperforms the other filters in the interesting case of white noise.

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arXiv2004

Gaussianity of the CMB: Smooth Goodness of Fit Tests Applied to Interferometric Data

We adapt the smooth tests of goodness of fit developed by Rayner and Best to the study of the non-Gaussianity of interferometric observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The interferometric measurements (visibilities) are transformed into signal-to-noise eigenmodes, and then the method is applied directly in Fourier space. This transformation allows us to perform the analysis in different subsets of eigenmodes according to their signal-to-noise level. The method can also deal with non-uniform or incomplete coverage of the UV plane. We explore here two possibilities: we analyse either the real and imaginary parts of the complex visibilities (Gaussianly distributed under the Gaussianity hypothesis) or their phases (uniformly distributed under the Gaussianity hypothesis). The power of the method in discriminating between Gaussian and non-Gaussian distributions is studied by using several kinds of non-Gaussian simulations. On the one hand, we introduce a certain degree of non-Gaussianity directly into the Fourier space using the Edgeworth expansion, and afterwards the desired correlation is introduced. On the other hand, we consider interferometric observations of a map with topological defects (cosmic strings). To these previous non-Gaussian simulations we add different noise levels and quantify the required signal-to-noise ratio necessary to achieve a detection of these non-Gaussian features. Finally, we have also studied the ability of the method to constrain the so-called nonlinear coupling constant f_{NL} using chi^2 simulations.The whole method is illustrated here by application to simulated data from the Very Small Array interferometer.

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arXiv2004

The estimation of the SZ effects with unbiased multifilters

In this work we study the performance of linear multifilters for the estimation of the amplitudes of the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects. We show that when both effects are present, estimation of these effects with standard matched multifilters is intrinsically biased. This bias is due to the fact that both signals have basically the same spatial profile. We find a new family of multifilters related to the matched multifilters that cancel this systematic bias, hence we call them Unbiased Matched Multifilters. We test the unbiased matched multifilters and compare them with the standard matched multifilters using simulations that reproduce the future Planck mission's observations. We find that in the case of the standard matched multifilters the systematic bias in the estimation of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect can be very large, even greater than the statistical error bars. Unbiased matched multifilters cancel effectively this kind of bias. In concordance with other works in the literature, our results indicate that the sensitivity and resolution of Planck will not be enough to give reliable estimations of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich of individual clusters. However, since the estimation with the unbiased matched multifilters is not intrinsically biased, it can be possible to use them to statistically study peculiar velocities in large scales using large sets of clusters.

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arXiv2004

All-sky component separation in the presence of anisotropic noise and dust temperature variations

We present an extension of the harmonic-space maximum-entropy component separation method (MEM) for multi-frequency CMB observations that allows one to perform the separation with more plausible assumptions about the receiver noise and foreground astrophysical components. Component separation is considered in the presence of spatially-varying noise variance and spectral properties of the foreground components. It is shown that, if not taken properly into account, the presence of spatially-varying foreground spectra, in particular, can severely reduce the accuracy of the component separation. Nevertheless, by extending the basic method to accommodate such behaviour and the presence of anisotropic noise, we find that the accuracy of the component separation can be improved to a level comparable with previous investigations in which these effects were not present.

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arXiv2004

The very bright SCUBA galaxy count: looking for SCUBA galaxies with the Mexican Hat Wavelet

We present the results of a search for bright high-redshift galaxies in two large SCUBA scan-maps of Galactic regions. A Mexican Hat Wavelet technique was used to locate point sources in these maps, which suffer high foreground contamination as well as typical scan-map noise signatures. A catalogue of point source objects was selected and observed again in the submillimetre continuum, and in HCO+ (3->2) at zero redshift to rule out Galactic sources. No extragalactic sources were found. Simulations show that the survey was sensitive to sources with fluxes > 50 mJy, depending on the local background. These simulations result in upper limits on the 850-micron counts of SCUBA galaxies of 53 per square degree at 50 mJy and 2.9 per square degree at 100 mJy.

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arXiv2004

Foreground separation using a flexible maximum-entropy algorithm: an application to COBE data

A flexible maximum-entropy component separation algorithm is presented that accommodates anisotropic noise, incomplete sky-coverage and uncertainties in the spectral parameters of foregrounds. The capabilities of the method are determined by first applying it to simulated spherical microwave data sets emulating the COBE-DMR, COBE-DIRBE and Haslam surveys. Using these simulations we find that is very difficult to determine unambiguously the spectral parameters of the galactic components for this data set due to their high level of noise. Nevertheless, we show that is possible to find a robust CMB reconstruction, especially at the high galactic latitude. The method is then applied to these real data sets to obtain reconstructions of the CMB component and galactic foreground emission over the whole sky. The best reconstructions are found for values of the spectral parameters: T_d=19 K, alpha_d=2, beta_ff=-0.19 and beta_syn=-0.8. The CMB map has been recovered with an estimated statistical error of \sim 22 muK on an angular scale of 7 degrees outside the galactic cut whereas the low galactic latitude region presents contamination from the foreground emissions.

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arXiv2004

Detection of non-Gaussianity in the WMAP 1-year data using spherical wavelets

A non-Gaussian detection in the WMAP 1-year data is reported. The detection has been found in the combined Q-V-W map proposed by the WMAP team (Komatsu et al. 2003) after applying a wavelet technique based on the Spherical Mexican Hat Wavelet (SMHW). The skewness and the kurtosis of the SMHW coefficients are calculated at different scales. A non-Gaussian signal is detected at scales of the SMHW around 4 deg (size in the sky of around 10 deg). The right tail probability of the detection is approx. 0.4%. In addition, a study of Gaussianity is performed in each hemisphere. The northern hemisphere is compatible with Gaussianity, whereas the southern one deviates from Gaussianity with a right tail probability of approx. 0.1%. Systematics, foregrounds and uncertainties in the estimation of the cosmological parameters are carefully studied in order to identify the possible source of non-Gaussianity. The detected deviation from Gaussianity is not found to be caused by systematic effects: 1) each one of the Q, V and W receivers shows the same non-Gaussianity pattern, and 2) several combinations of the different receivers at each frequency band do not show this non-Gaussian pattern. Similarly, galactic foregrounds show a negligible contribution to the non-Gaussian detection: non-Gaussianity is detected in all the WMAP maps and no frequency dependence is observed. Moreover, the expected foreground contribution to the combined WMAP map was added to CMB Gaussian simulations showing a behaviour compatible with the Gaussian model. Influence of uncertainties in the CMB power spectrum estimation are also quantified. Hence, possible intrinsic temperature fluctuations (like secondary anisotropies and primordial features) can not be rejected as the source of this non-Gaussian detection.

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arXiv2003

Tests of Gaussianity

We review two powerful methods to test the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB): one based on the distribution of spherical wavelet coefficients and the other on smooth tests of goodness-of-fit. The spherical wavelet families proposed to analyse the CMB are the Haar and the Mexican Hat ones. The latter is preferred for detecting non-Gaussian homogeneous and isotropic primordial models containing some amount of skewness or kurtosis. Smooth tests of goodness-of-fit have recently been introduced in the field showing some interesting properties. We will discuss the smooth tests of goodness-of-fit developed by Rayner and Best for the univariate as well as for the multivariate analysis.

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