DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF THE ANGULAR POWER SPECTRUM OF COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND TEMPERATURE ANISOTROPIES IN THE WMAP DATA
- Institute of Astrophysics, National Taiwan University, 1, Rooservolt Road, Taipei, Taiwan (China)
- Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, P.O. Box 23-141, Taipei 10617, Taiwan (China)
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies is one of the most important characteristics in cosmology that can shed light on the properties of the universe such as its geometry and total density. Using flat sky approximation and Fourier analysis, we estimate the angular power spectrum from an ensemble of the least foreground-contaminated square patches from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe W and V frequency band map. This method circumvents the issue of foreground cleaning and that of breaking orthogonality in spherical harmonic analysis because we are able to mask out the bright Galactic plane region, thereby rendering a direct measurement of the angular power spectrum. We test and confirm the Gaussian statistical characteristic of the selected patches, from which the first and second acoustic peaks of the power spectrum are reproduced, and the third peak is clearly visible, albeit with some noise residual at the tail.
- OSTI ID:
- 22037238
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 751, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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