Max Tegmark's CMB analysis center: EXPERIMENTS
This site contains up-to-date links to cosmic microwave background
(CMB) resources across the globe, focusing on data
analysis. For theoretical aspects,
see e.g. Wayne
Hu's theory center.
Experimental data summary
(Feb 2004) New CBI and VSA results!
This figure summarizes the experimental results as of February 23 2004.
Click on it for a postscript version. If you find this too cluttered, here's
a combination of WMAP, CBI, ACBAR, BOOM, DASI, MAXIMA & VSA as per January 2004
taking into account calibration and beam errors
as described in this paper:
(click on it for ps).
I've removed all other experiments from the compilation because they make
essentially no difference to the combined plot above, and because the
approximation that they are independent of WMAP breaks down except for
experiments with small sky coverage on small angular scales.
Nostalgic readers will find all the old data
here: gif,
ps.
Here are text files with the corresponding
data,
window functions and
correlation matrix (haven't yet had time
to update these including WMAP - sorry).
To use these window functions, make sure to
read the definition here
to avoid confusion about an extra l-factor etc.
(9/19/02) DASI detects polarization!
(Sorry - haven't added WMAP polarization detection yet.)
Click on the plot for a postscript version.
You'll also find useful data compilations on the websites of
Eric Gawiser
and
Lloyd Knox.
Please send additions
and corrections to max@physics.upenn.edu.
I used to have a big yellow table here with all the numbers - I've removed it since
it's superseded by the above-mentioned text files and was hard to cut and paste from.
Foreground summary
This figure summarizes the angular and frequency sensitivity of various
experiments. Click on it for a postscript version.
For foreground software and data tables (including polarization),
please check out my foreground page
here, our
WMAP foreground paper and our
monster review.
Please send the specifications
for missing ones to max@physics.upenn.edu.
(Currently, e.g., TOP HAT, MAXIMA and BEAST are unfortunately omitted from the figure above simply
since they make it too cluttered.) For future multichannel experiments,
the crude boxes have been replaced by polygons, the highest l-value at
each channel being that at which noise dominates over sample variance
(see Knox
1995 or Tegmark & Efstathiou 1996).
exp(theta^2 l^2)/w equals that of Qflat=20 microkelvin CMB fluctuations.
Likewise, the colored regions show where fluctuations in various foregrounds
are expected to exceed those of Qflat=20 microkelvin CMB fluctuations in
the cleanest 20% of the sky. The foregrounds are dust (red), point-sources
(green), synchrotron (magenta) and free-free emission (cyan), and the estimates
are based on Tegmark & Efstathiou 1996.
Needless to say, one can perform successful CMB measurements outside of
the white region as well, with appropriate foreground removal schemes.
Links to CMB Experiments
-
Satellites

-
Balloon-borne

-
Ground-based

Please send missing links to max@physics.upenn.edu
Other CMB links:
This page is maintained by Max Tegmark,
max@physics.upenn.edu,
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