Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-05-11
ApJS 193 5 (2011)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
26 pages, 15 figures. New subsection on beam/PSF statistics, new and better figures, more explicit algebra for polarized beams
Scientific paper
10.1088/0067-0049/193/1/5
Precise measurement of the angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy can tightly constrain many cosmological models and parameters. However, accurate measurements can only be realized in practice provided all major systematic effects have been taken into account. Beam asymmetry, coupled with the scan strategy, is a major source of systematic error in scanning CMB experiments such as Planck, the focus of our current interest. We envision Monte Carlo methods to rigorously study and account for the systematic effect of beams in CMB analysis. Toward that goal, we have developed a fast pixel space convolution method that can simulate sky maps observed by a scanning instrument, taking into account real beam shapes and scan strategy. The essence is to pre-compute the "effective beams" using a computer code, "Fast Effective Beam Convolution in Pixel space" (FEBeCoP), that we have developed for the Planck mission. The code computes effective beams given the focal plane beam characteristics of the Planck instrument and the full history of actual satellite pointing, and performs very fast convolution of sky signals using the effective beams. In this paper, we describe the algorithm and the computational scheme that has been implemented. We also outline a few applications of the effective beams in the precision analysis of Planck data, for characterizing the CMB anisotropy and for detecting and measuring properties of point sources.
Ashdown Mark A. J.
Eriksen Hans Kristian
Górski Kris M.
Huffenberger Kevin Michael
Lawrence Charles R.
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