Anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background

    General
    Description

    The general goal of this project is to determine and characterize the spatial and spectral variations in the temperature and polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background in angular scales from several arcminutes to several degrees. The primordial matter density fluctuations which originated the structure in the matter distribution of the present Universe, left imprinted inhomogeneities in the CMB temperature distribution, that are mathematically encoded in the so-called angular power spectrum. Initially, pioneering experiments like the COBE satellite (whose results deserved the Nobel Prize on Physics 2006) or the Tenerife CMB experiment demonstrated in the 90s that the level of anisotropy was about one part in a hundred thousands at angular scales of several degrees. Obtaining CMB maps at various frequencies with sufficient sensitivity to detect structures at this level is of fundamental importance to extract information on the power spectrum of primordial density fluctuations, to prove the existence of an inflationary period in the Early Universe and to establish the ultimate nature of the dark matter and dark energy. Recently, the WMAP satellite obtained CMB maps with unprecedented sensitivity that allowed to set restrictions on a large number of cosmological parameters.

    The focus of this project is to undertake measurements at gradually higher angular resolutions and sensitivities, by using different experiments that have been operative from the Teide Observatory, like the Tenerife experiment, the IAC-Bartol experiment or the JBO-IAC interferometer. More recently, the Very Small Array interferometer performed observations between 1999 and 2008. At that time the COSMOSOMAS experiment was also operative, its goal having been not only the characterization of the primary CMB anisotropies but also the study and characterization of the Galactic foreground contamination. In more recent years the activity in this project has focused in the scientific exploitation of data from the Planck satellite, and in the development, operation and exploitation of the QUIJOTE experiment. Now that the Planck mission has been completed and finished, the activity is focused in the scientific exploitation of QUIJOTE, in the development of new instrumentation for QUIJOTE, and in in the development of new experiments that are being deployed or that will be deployed at the Teide Observatory: GroundBRID, STRIP, KISS and TMS.

    Principal investigator
    Project staff
    Collaborators
    Dr.
    Fernando Atrio Barandela
    Dr.
    Enrique Martínez González
    Dr.
    Carlos Hernández Monteagudo
    1. 6-7 june: XV QUIJOTE Scientific Meeting (IFCA, Santander)
    2. July: publication of the final results (12 articles) and data from the Planck satellite.
    3. 15-19 october: "CMB foregrounds for B-mode studies" conference, organised within the Radioforegrounds proyect, IV AME workshop, and XVI QUIJOTE Scientific Meeting (all these eventes were celebrated at the IAC)
    4. October: installation of the dome of the GroundBIRD experiment, at the Teide Observatory.
    5. December: aceptation of the third QUIJOTE scientific article (Poidevin et al. 2019)

    Related publications

    • Cosmic Amorphous Dust Model as the Origin of Anomalous Microwave Emission
      We have shown that the thermal emission of the amorphous dust composed of amorphous silicate dust (a-Si) and amorphous carbon dust (a-C) provides an excellent fit both to the observed intensity and the polarization spectra of molecular clouds. The anomalous microwave emission (AME) originates from the resonance transition of the two-level systems
      Nashimoto, Masashi et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      10
    • GroundBIRD: A CMB Polarization Experiment with MKID Arrays
      GroundBIRD is a ground-based experiment for a precise observation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarizations. To achieve high sensitivity at large angular scales, we adopt three features in this experiment: fast rotation scanning, microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID), and cold optics. The rotation scanning strategy has the
      Lee, K. et al.

      Advertised on:

      8
      2020
      Citations
      20
    • Planck 2018 results. VIII. Gravitational lensing
      We present measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential using the final Planck 2018 temperature and polarization data. Using polarization maps filtered to account for the noise anisotropy, we increase the significance of the detection of lensing in the polarization maps from 5σ to 9σ. Combined with temperature, lensing is
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      669
    • Planck 2018 results. IV. Diffuse component separation
      We present full-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and polarized synchrotron and thermal dust emission, derived from the third set of Planck frequency maps. These products have significantly lower contamination from instrumental systematic effects than previous versions. The methodologies used to derive these maps follow closely
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      328
    • Planck 2018 results. II. Low Frequency Instrument data processing
      We present a final description of the data-processing pipeline for the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), implemented for the 2018 data release. Several improvements have been made with respect to the previous release, especially in the calibration process and in the correction of instrumental features such as the effects of nonlinearity in the
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      105
    • Planck 2018 results. VII. Isotropy and statistics of the CMB
      Analysis of the Planck 2018 data set indicates that the statistical properties of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies are in excellent agreement with previous studies using the 2013 and 2015 data releases. In particular, they are consistent with the Gaussian predictions of the ΛCDM cosmological model, yet also confirm the
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      257
    • Planck 2018 results. V. CMB power spectra and likelihoods
      We describe the legacy Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) likelihoods derived from the 2018 data release. The overall approach is similar in spirit to the one retained for the 2013 and 2015 data release, with a hybrid method using different approximations at low (ℓ < 30) and high (ℓ ≥ 30) multipoles, implementing several methodological and
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      866
    • Planck 2018 results. XI. Polarized dust foregrounds
      The study of polarized dust emission has become entwined with the analysis of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization in the quest for the curl-like B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves and the low-multipole E-mode polarization associated with the reionization of the Universe. We used the new Planck PR3 maps to
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      198
    • Planck 2018 results. IX. Constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity
      We analyse the Planck full-mission cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and E-mode polarization maps to obtain constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). We compare estimates obtained from separable template-fitting, binned, and optimal modal bispectrum estimators, finding consistent values for the local, equilateral, and orthogonal
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      637
    • Planck 2018 results. XII. Galactic astrophysics using polarized dust emission
      Observations of the submillimetre emission from Galactic dust, in both total intensity I and polarization, have received tremendous interest thanks to the Planck full-sky maps. In this paper we make use of such full-sky maps of dust polarized emission produced from the third public release of Planck data. As the basis for expanding on astrophysical
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      184
    • Planck 2018 results. I. Overview and the cosmological legacy of Planck
      The European Space Agency's Planck satellite, which was dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched on 14 May 2009. It scanned the microwave and submillimetre sky continuously between 12 August 2009 and 23 October 2013, producing deep, high-resolution, all-sky maps in nine frequency bands from 30 to 857 GHz
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      1000
    • Planck 2018 results. X. Constraints on inflation
      We report on the implications for cosmic inflation of the 2018 release of the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements. The results are fully consistent with those reported using the data from the two previous Planck cosmological releases, but have smaller uncertainties thanks to improvements in the characterization of
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      1000
    • Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters
      We present cosmological parameter results from the final full-mission Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, combining information from the temperature and polarization maps and the lensing reconstruction. Compared to the 2015 results, improved measurements of large-scale polarization allow the reionization
      Planck Collaboration et al.

      Advertised on:

      9
      2020
      Citations
      1000
    • The C-Band All-Sky Survey: total intensity point-source detection over the northern sky
      We present a point-source detection algorithm that employs the second-order Spherical Mexican Hat wavelet filter (SMHW2), and use it on C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) northern intensity data to produce a catalogue of point sources. This catalogue allows us to cross-check the C-BASS flux-density scale against existing source surveys, and provides
      Grumitt, R. D. P. et al.

      Advertised on:

      6
      2020
      Citations
      2
    • Resolved observations at 31 GHz of spinning dust emissivity variations in ρ Oph
      The ρ Oph molecular cloud is one of the best examples of spinning dust emission, first detected by the cosmic background imager (CBI). Here, we present 4.5 arcmin observations with CBI 2 that confirm 31 GHz emission from ρ Oph W, the PDR exposed to B-type star HD 147889, and highlight the absence of signal from S1, the brightest IR nebula in the
      Arce-Tord, Carla et al.

      Advertised on:

      5
      2020
      Citations
      8
    • Nightside condensation of iron in an ultrahot giant exoplanet
      Ultrahot giant exoplanets receive thousands of times Earth's insolation 1,2. Their high-temperature atmospheres (greater than 2,000 kelvin) are ideal laboratories for studying extreme planetary climates and chemistry 3-5. Daysides are predicted to be cloud-free, dominated by atomic species 6 and much hotter than nightsides 5,7,8. Atoms are expected
      Ehrenreich, David et al.

      Advertised on:

      3
      2020
      Citations
      208
    • Thermal emission from the amorphous dust: An alternative possibility of the origin of the anomalous microwave emission
      Complete studies of the radiative processes of thermal emission from the amorphous dust from microwave through far-infrared wavebands are presented by taking into account, self-consistently for the first time, the standard two-level systems (TLS) model of amorphous materials. The observed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for the Perseus
      Nashimoto, Masashi et al.

      Advertised on:

      2
      2020
      Citations
      6
    • Manufacturing of 3D-metallic electromagnetic metamaterials for feedhorns usedin radioastronomy and satellite communications
      The electromagnetic metamaterials at microwaves frequencies are well established in industrial applications nowadays. Recent research has shown that a specific kind of metallic metamaterial can contribute to improve the performance of the microwave feedhorns used in radioastronomy and satellite telecommunications. In this article, we theoretically
      de Miguel-Hernández, J. et al.

      Advertised on:

      10
      2019
    • A High Sensitivity Fourier Transform Spectrometer for Cosmic Microwave Back-ground Observations
      The QUIJOTE Experiment was developed to study the polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over the frequency range of 10-50 GHz. Its first instrument, the Multi-Frequency-Instrument (MFI), measures in the range 10-20 GHz which coincides with one of the naturally transparent windows in the atmosphere. The Tenerife Microwave
      de Miguel-Hernández, J. et al.

      Advertised on:

      10
      2019
    • Fundamentals of horn antennas with low cross-polarization levels for radioastronomy and satellite communications
      The literature on horn antennas dedicated to radio astronomy and satellite communications applications is very extensive and at times disjointed, relevant contributions being distributed as far back as from the 60's until the present today. This work combines a compact but complete review of the different theories, methodologies and techniques used
      De Miguel-Hernández, J. et al.

      Advertised on:

      8
      2019
      Citations
      8

    Related talks

    No related talks were found.

    Related conferences

    • XIX Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics "The Cosmic Microwave | Background: from quantum fluctuations to the present Universe"
      Tenerife, Canary Islands
      Spain
      Date
      -
      Past
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