A High Galactic Latitude Dust Template for CMB Polarization Studies

Details A High Galactic Latitude Dust Template for CMB Polarization Studies A High Galactic Latitude Dust Template for CMB Polarization Studies

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21441303f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #413.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.680

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present measurements of the R-band polarization of starlight for bright Galactic halo K giants selected from a sample of stars distributed nearly uniformly across the Southern high Galactic latitude sky (|b| > 20 deg). Photometric parallaxes based on DDO51 intermediate band imaging indicate that virtually all stars in our sample are at least 200 pc above the Galactic disk, with a median distance around 1 kpc. Since most of the polarized absorption by Galactic interstellar dust happens within a few hundred parsecs of the Galactic disk, the polarization map we derive constitutes an ideal template for use in studies of the polarized components of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). With over 600 stars already observed, our results are based on fourteen times more data than available in the Heiles sample in the region (|b| > 20 deg, |z| > 200 pc) and cover significantly more sky than the Berdyugin sample which does not have information for |b| < 70 deg. In addition to its usefulness in the context of CMB foreground removal, this template enables us to study the properties of interstellar dust grains and to gain insights into the structure of the Galactic magnetic field at high Galactic latitudes. We also use our measurements to improve the determination of the zero-point of dust extinction maps.

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