Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra

Details Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra

2006-04-26

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0604547v2

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.372:1104-1116,2006

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

12 pages, 2 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10910.x

We consider the shape of the likelihood and posterior surfaces to be used when fitting cosmological models to CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra measured from experiments. In the limit of an all-sky survey with Gaussian distributed pixel noise we show that the true combined likelihood of the four CMB power spectra (TT, TE, EE & BB) has a Wishart distribution and we discuss the properties of this function. We compare various fits to the posterior surface of the Cls, both in the case of a single auto-power spectrum and for a combination of temperature and polarisation data. In the latter case, it is important that the fits can accurately match the Wishart distribution in the limit of near full-sky coverage. Simple extensions of auto-power spectrum fits to include polarisation data generally fail to match correlations between the different power spectra in this limit. Directly fitting pixel values on large scales, as undertaken by the WMAP team in their analysis of the 3 year data, avoids the complications of characterising the shape of the posterior for the power spectra. Finally we demonstrate the importance of the likelihood distribution on analytic marginalisation, and provide a formula for analytic marginalisation over a calibration error given an all-sky survey.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Likelihood methods for the combined analysis of CMB temperature and polarisation power spectra will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-505019