Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky

Details Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008aas...212.2304b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #212, #23.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.221

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies by interferometers offer several advantages over single-dish observations. The formalism for analyzing interferometer CMB data is well-developed in the flat-sky approximation, valid for small fields of view. As the area of sky is increased to obtain finer spectral resolution, this approximation needs to be relaxed. In particular, the predicted signature of inflationary gravitational waves in CMB polarization maps occurs on large angular scales and will therefore require sky coverage too large for the flat-sky approximation to be appropriate.
We consider the formalism for analyzing interferometric CMB observations on large angular scales, including both temperature and polarization. In addition to reviewing the formalism for observations in which a single pointing covers a large solid angle, we present a
simple, convenient method of analyzing mosaics of observations covering arbitrarily large areas of the sky, with each individual pointing lying within the flat-sky approximation. In particular, we present a method for computing the correlation between visibilities with arbitrary pointing centers and baselines and illustrate the effects of sky curvature on the l-space resolution that can be obtained from a mosaic. The leading correction to the correlations due to sky curvature can be described in terms of "baseline rotation": baselines that appear parallel (and hence strongly correlated) in the flat-sky approximation are in fact not parallel when sky curvature is taken into account.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky 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 Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Microwave Background Interferometry on the Spherical Sky will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1395618