First-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations: Galactic signal contamination from sidelobe pickup

C. Barnes, R. S. Hill, G. Hinshaw, L. Page, C. L. Bennett, M. Halpern, N. Jarosik, A. Kogut, M. Limon, S. S. Meyer, G. S. Tucker, E. Wollack, E. L. Wright

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

Since the Galactic center is ∼1000 times brighter than fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), CMB experiments must carefully account for stray Galactic pickup. We present the level of contamination due to sidelobes for the first-year CMB maps produced by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observatory. For each radiometer, full 4π sr antenna gain patterns are determined from a combination of numerical prediction and ground-based and space-based measurements. These patterns are convolved with the WMAP first-year sky maps and observatory scan pattern to generate the expected sidelobe signal contamination, for both intensity and polarized microwave sky maps. When the main beams are outside of the Galactic plane, we find rms values for the expected sidelobe pickup of 15, 2.1, 2.0, 0.3, and 0.5 μK for the K, Ka, Q, V, and W bands, respectively. Except for at the K band, the rms polarized contamination is ≫ 1 μK. Angular power spectra of the Galactic pickup are presented.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)51-62
Number of pages12
JournalAstrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
Volume148
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2003

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

Keywords

  • Cosmic microwave background
  • Cosmology: observations
  • Galaxy: structure
  • ISM: structure
  • Instrumentation: miscellaneous
  • Methods: data analysis

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