Second and Third Season QUaD Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and Polarization Power Spectra

• Published in: The Astrophysical Journal
• Main Authors: Pryke, C., Ade, P., Bock, J., Bowden, M., Brown, M. L., Cahill, G., Castro, P. G., Church, S., Culverhouse, T., Friedman, R., Ganga, K., Gear, W. K., Gupta, S., Hinderks, J., Kovac, J., Lange, A. E., Leitch, E., Melhuish, S. J., Memari, Y., Murphy, J. A., Orlando, A., Schwarz, R., Ó Sullivan, C., Piccirillo, L., Rajguru, N., Rusholme, B., Taylor, A. N., Thompson, K. L., Turner, A. H., Wu, E. Y. S., Zemcov, M., QUaD Collaboration
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Astronomical Society 2009
• Subjects: cosmic microwave background; cosmology: observations; polarization; Antarctic; Kavli; South Pole; Antarc*; South pole; United States Antarctic Program
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/692/2/1247

We report results from the second and third seasons of observation with the QUaD experiment. Angular power spectra of the cosmic microwave background are derived for both temperature and polarization at both 100 GHz and 150 GHz, and as cross-frequency spectra. All spectra are subjected to an extensive set of jackknife tests to probe for possible systematic contamination. For the implemented data cuts and processing technique such contamination is undetectable. We analyze the difference map formed between the 100 and 150 GHz bands and find no evidence of foreground contamination in polarization. The spectra are then combined to form a single set of results which are shown to be consistent with the prevailing LCDM model. The sensitivity of the polarization results is considerably better than that of any previous experiment—for the first time multiple acoustic peaks are detected in the E-mode power spectrum at high significance. © 2009 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 May 14; accepted 2008 October 2; published 2009 February 24. QUaD is funded by the National Science Foundation in the USA, through grants AST-0096778, ANT-0338138, ANT- 0338335, and ANT-0338238, by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the UK, and by the Science Foundation Ireland. We would like to thank the staff of the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station and all involved in the United States Antarctic Program for the superb support operation which makes the science presented here possible. Special thanks go to our intrepid winter over scientist Robert Schwarz who spent three consecutive winter seasons tending the QUaD experiment. The BOOMERanG Collaboration kindly allowed the use of their CMB maps for our calibration purposes. M.L.B. acknowledges the award of a PPARC fellowship. S.E.C. acknowledges support from a Stanford Terman Fellowship. J.R.H. acknowledges the support of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a Stanford Graduate Fellowship. C.P. and J.E.C. acknowledge partial support from the Kavli ...