ON MEASURING THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND TEMPERATURE AT REDSHIFT 0.89
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Auf dem Huegel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM 87801 (United States)
We report on a measurement of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation field, T {sub CMB}, at z = 0.88582 by imaging HC{sub 3}N(3 <- 2) and (5 <- 4) absorption in the foreground galaxy of the gravitationally lens magnified radio source PKS 1830-211 using the Very Long Baseline Array and the phased Very Large Array. Low-resolution imaging of the data yields a value of T {sub rot} = 5.6{sup +2.5} {sub -0.9} K for the rotational temperature, T {sub rot}, which is consistent with the temperature of the cosmic microwave background at the absorber's redshift of 2.73(1 + z) K. However, our high-resolution imaging reveals that the absorption peak position of the foreground gas is offset from the continuum peak position of the synchrotron radiation from PKS 1830-211SW, which indicates that the absorbing cloud is covering only part of the emission from PKS 1830-211, rather than the entire core-jet region. This changes the line-to-continuum ratios, and we find T {sub rot} between 1.1 and 2.5 K, which is lower than the expected value. This shows that previous T {sub rot} measurements could be biased due to unresolved structure.
- OSTI ID:
- 22167744
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 764, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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