Planck data revisited: low-noise synchrotron polarisation maps from the WMAP and Planck space missions

Planck data revisited: low-noise synchrotron polarisation maps from the WMAP and Planck space missions
Jacques Delabrouille
arXiv:2403.18123v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Observations of cosmic microwave background polarisation, essential for probing a potential phase of inflation in the early universe, suffer from contamination by polarised emission from the Galactic interstellar medium. This work combines existing observations from the WMAP and Planck space missions to make a low-noise map of polarised synchrotron emission that can be used to clean forthcoming CMB observations. We combine WMAP K, Ka and Q maps with Planck LFI 30~GHz and 44~GHz maps using weights that near-optimally combine the observations as a function of sky direction, angular scale, and polarisation orientation. We publish well-characterised maps of synchrotron Q and U Stokes parameters at nu = 30GHz and 1 degree angular resolution. A statistical description of uncertainties is provided with Monte-Carlo simulations of additive and multiplicative errors. Our maps are the most sensitive full-sky maps of synchrotron polarisation to date, and are made available to the scientific community on a dedicated web site.arXiv:2403.18123v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Observations of cosmic microwave background polarisation, essential for probing a potential phase of inflation in the early universe, suffer from contamination by polarised emission from the Galactic interstellar medium. This work combines existing observations from the WMAP and Planck space missions to make a low-noise map of polarised synchrotron emission that can be used to clean forthcoming CMB observations. We combine WMAP K, Ka and Q maps with Planck LFI 30~GHz and 44~GHz maps using weights that near-optimally combine the observations as a function of sky direction, angular scale, and polarisation orientation. We publish well-characterised maps of synchrotron Q and U Stokes parameters at nu = 30GHz and 1 degree angular resolution. A statistical description of uncertainties is provided with Monte-Carlo simulations of additive and multiplicative errors. Our maps are the most sensitive full-sky maps of synchrotron polarisation to date, and are made available to the scientific community on a dedicated web site.