Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole
We report measurements of the millimeter wavelength brightness fluctuations produced by the atmosphere above the South Pole made with the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR). The data span the 2002 Austral winter during which ACBAR was mounted on the Viper telescope at the South Pol...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412031 2023-05-15T18:21:53+02:00 Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole Bussmann, R. S. Holzapfel, W. L. Kuo, C. L. 2004 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412031 https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0412031 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1086/427935 Assumed arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article for submissions made before January 2004 http://arxiv.org/licenses/assumed-1991-2003/ Astrophysics astro-ph FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2004 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412031 https://doi.org/10.1086/427935 2022-04-01T16:15:19Z We report measurements of the millimeter wavelength brightness fluctuations produced by the atmosphere above the South Pole made with the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR). The data span the 2002 Austral winter during which ACBAR was mounted on the Viper telescope at the South Pole. We recover the atmospheric signal in the presence of instrument noise by calculating the correlation between signals from distinct elements of the ACBAR bolometer array. With this method, it is possible to measure atmospheric brightness fluctuations with high SNR even under the most stable atmospheric conditions. The observed atmospheric signal is characterized by the parameters of the Komolgorov-Taylor (KT) model, which are the amplitude and power law exponent describing the atmospheric power spectrum, and the two components of the wind angular velocity at the time of the observation. The KT model is typically a good description of the observed fluctuations, and fits to the data produce values of the Komolgorov exponent that are consistent with theoretical expectations. By combining the wind angular velocity results with measurements of the wind linear velocity, we find that the altitude of the observed atmospheric fluctuations is consistent with the distribution of water vapor determined from radiosonde data. For data corresponding to frequency passbands centered on 150, 219, and 274 GHz, we obtain median fluctuation power amplitudes of [10, 38, 74] mK^{2} rad^{-5/3} in Rayleigh-Jeans temperature units. Comparing with previous work, we find that these median amplitudes are approximately an order of magnitude smaller than those found at the South Pole during the Austral summer and at least 30 times lower than found at the ALMA site in the Atacama desert. : 13 pages, 15 figures, submitted to ApJ, vertical margins fixed Text South pole DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Austral South Pole |
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topic |
Astrophysics astro-ph FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Astrophysics astro-ph FOS Physical sciences Bussmann, R. S. Holzapfel, W. L. Kuo, C. L. Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
topic_facet |
Astrophysics astro-ph FOS Physical sciences |
description |
We report measurements of the millimeter wavelength brightness fluctuations produced by the atmosphere above the South Pole made with the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR). The data span the 2002 Austral winter during which ACBAR was mounted on the Viper telescope at the South Pole. We recover the atmospheric signal in the presence of instrument noise by calculating the correlation between signals from distinct elements of the ACBAR bolometer array. With this method, it is possible to measure atmospheric brightness fluctuations with high SNR even under the most stable atmospheric conditions. The observed atmospheric signal is characterized by the parameters of the Komolgorov-Taylor (KT) model, which are the amplitude and power law exponent describing the atmospheric power spectrum, and the two components of the wind angular velocity at the time of the observation. The KT model is typically a good description of the observed fluctuations, and fits to the data produce values of the Komolgorov exponent that are consistent with theoretical expectations. By combining the wind angular velocity results with measurements of the wind linear velocity, we find that the altitude of the observed atmospheric fluctuations is consistent with the distribution of water vapor determined from radiosonde data. For data corresponding to frequency passbands centered on 150, 219, and 274 GHz, we obtain median fluctuation power amplitudes of [10, 38, 74] mK^{2} rad^{-5/3} in Rayleigh-Jeans temperature units. Comparing with previous work, we find that these median amplitudes are approximately an order of magnitude smaller than those found at the South Pole during the Austral summer and at least 30 times lower than found at the ALMA site in the Atacama desert. : 13 pages, 15 figures, submitted to ApJ, vertical margins fixed |
format |
Text |
author |
Bussmann, R. S. Holzapfel, W. L. Kuo, C. L. |
author_facet |
Bussmann, R. S. Holzapfel, W. L. Kuo, C. L. |
author_sort |
Bussmann, R. S. |
title |
Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
title_short |
Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
title_full |
Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
title_fullStr |
Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
title_full_unstemmed |
Millimeter Wavelength Brightness Fluctuations of the Atmosphere Above the South Pole |
title_sort |
millimeter wavelength brightness fluctuations of the atmosphere above the south pole |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2004 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412031 https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0412031 |
geographic |
Austral South Pole |
geographic_facet |
Austral South Pole |
genre |
South pole |
genre_facet |
South pole |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1086/427935 |
op_rights |
Assumed arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article for submissions made before January 2004 http://arxiv.org/licenses/assumed-1991-2003/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412031 https://doi.org/10.1086/427935 |
_version_ |
1766201217045757952 |