THE ATACAMA COSMOLOGY TELESCOPE: CALIBRATION WITH THE WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE USING CROSS-CORRELATIONS

Journal Article · Thu Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/740/2/86; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21587366

Hajian, Amir; Bond, John R ^[1]; Acquaviva, Viviana; Das, Sudeep; Dunkley, Joanna ^[2]; Ade, Peter A. R. ^[3]; Aguirre, Paula; Barrientos, L Felipe ^[4]; Amiri, Mandana; Battistelli, Elia S; Burger, Bryce ^[5]; Appel, John William; Duenner, Rolando; Essinger-Hileman, Thomas; Fisher, Ryan P ^[6]; Brown, Ben ^[7]; Chervenak, Jay ^[8]; Devlin, Mark J; Dicker, Simon R ^[9]; Doriese, W Bertrand ^[10]

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1. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3H8 (Canada)
2. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Peyton Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
3. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, The Parade, Cardiff, Wales CF24 3AA (United Kingdom)
4. Departamento de Astronomia y Astrofisica, Facultad de Fisica, PontificIa Universidad Catolica de Chile, Casilla 306, Santiago 22 (Chile)
5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 (Canada)
6. Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States)
8. Code 553/665, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States)
10. NIST Quantum Devices Group, Boulder, CO 80305 (United States)

We present a new calibration method based on cross-correlations with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and apply it to data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). ACT's observing strategy and map-making procedure allows an unbiased reconstruction of the modes in the maps over a wide range of multipoles. By directly matching the ACT maps to WMAP observations in the multipole range of 400 < l < 1000, we determine the absolute calibration with an uncertainty of 2% in temperature. The precise measurement of the calibration error directly impacts the uncertainties in the cosmological parameters estimated from the ACT power spectra. We also present a combined map based on ACT and WMAP data that has a high signal-to-noise ratio over a wide range of multipoles.

• OSTI ID: 21587366
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 740, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/740/2/86; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ANISOTROPY
BACKGROUND RADIATION
CALIBRATION
CORRELATIONS
COSMIC RADIATION
COSMOLOGY
MICROWAVE RADIATION
PROBES
TELESCOPES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
RADIATIONS