We describe a morphological imprint of magnetization found when considering the relative orientation of the magnetic field direction with respect to the density structures in simulated turbulent ...molecular clouds. This imprint was found using the Histogram of Relative Orientations (HRO), a new technique that utilizes the gradient to characterize the directionality of density and column density structures on multiple scales. We present results of the HRO analysis in three models of molecular clouds in which the initial magnetic field strength is varied, but an identical initial turbulent velocity field is introduced, which subsequently decays. The HRO analysis was applied to the simulated data cubes and mock-observations of the simulations produced by integrating the data cube along particular lines of sight. In the three-dimensional analysis we describe the relative orientation of the magnetic field B with respect to the density structures, showing that: (1) the magnetic field shows a preferential orientation parallel to most of the density structures in the three simulated cubes, (2) the relative orientation changes from parallel to perpendicular in regions with density over a critical density nT in the highest magnetization case, and (3) the change of relative orientation is largest for the highest magnetization and decreases in lower magnetization cases. This change in the relative orientation is also present in the projected maps. In conjunction with simulations, HROs can be used to establish a link between the observed morphology in polarization maps and the physics included in simulations of molecular clouds.
We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the bicep2/Keck CMB polarization experiments up to and including the 2015 observing season. This includes the first Keck Array observations at ...220 GHz and additional observations at 95 and 150 GHz. The Q and U maps reach depths of 5.2, 2.9, and 26 μK_{CMB} arcmin at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, respectively, over an effective area of ≈400 square degrees. The 220 GHz maps achieve a signal to noise on polarized dust emission approximately equal to that of Planck at 353 GHz. We take auto and cross spectra between these maps and publicly available WMAP and Planck maps at frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. We evaluate the joint likelihood of the spectra versus a multicomponent model of lensed-ΛCDM+r+dust+synchrotron+noise. The foreground model has seven parameters, and we impose priors on some of these using external information from Planck and WMAP derived from larger regions of sky. The model is shown to be an adequate description of the data at the current noise levels. The likelihood analysis yields the constraint r_{0.05}<0.07 at 95% confidence, which tightens to r_{0.05}<0.06 in conjunction with Planck temperature measurements and other data. The lensing signal is detected at 8.8σ significance. Running a maximum likelihood search on simulations we obtain unbiased results and find that σ(r)=0.020. These are the strongest constraints to date on primordial gravitational waves.
We statistically evaluated the relative orientation between gas column density structures, inferred from Herschel submillimetre observations, and the magnetic field projected on the plane of sky, ...inferred from polarized thermal emission of Galactic dust observed by the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimetre Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) at 250, 350, and 500 μm, towards the Vela C molecular complex. First, we find very good agreement between the polarization orientations in the three wavelength-bands, suggesting that, at the considered common angular resolution of 3.́0 that corresponds to a physical scale of approximately 0.61 pc, the inferred magnetic field orientation is not significantly affected by temperature or dust grain alignment effects. Second, we find that the relative orientation between gas column density structures and the magnetic field changes progressively with increasing gas column density, from mostly parallel or having no preferred orientation at low column densities to mostly perpendicular at the highest column densities. This observation is in agreement with previous studies by the Planck collaboration towards more nearby molecular clouds. Finally, we find a correspondencebetween (a) the trends in relative orientation between the column density structures and the projected magnetic field; and (b) the shape of the column density probability distribution functions (PDFs). In the sub-regions of Vela C dominated by one clear filamentary structure, or “ridges”, where the high-column density tails of the PDFs are flatter, we find a sharp transition from preferentially parallel or having no preferred relative orientation at low column densities to preferentially perpendicular at highest column densities. In the sub-regions of Vela C dominated by several filamentary structures with multiple orientations, or “nests”, where the maximum values of the column density are smaller than in the ridge-like sub-regions and the high-column density tails of the PDFs are steeper, such a transition is also present, but it is clearly less sharp than in the ridge-like sub-regions. Both of these results suggest that the magnetic field is dynamically important for the formation of density structures in this region.
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a suborbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies ...(including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between three arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral windows at 250, 350, and 500 mum. The optical design is based on a 2 m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30 super(image ) at 250 mum. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of image30 super(image ); postflight pointing reconstruction to image5 super(image ) rms is achieved. The onboard telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a preselected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long- duration balloon flights: a 100 hr flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern Canada in 2005 June; and a 250 hr, circumpolar flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in 2006 December.
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope was designed to measure small-scale anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and detect galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. The instrument is ...located on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 5190 m. A 6 m off-axis Gregorian telescope feeds a new type of cryogenic receiver, the Millimeter Bolometer Array Camera. The receiver features three 1000-element arrays of transition-edge sensor bolometers for observations at 148 GHz, 218 GHz, and 277 GHz. Each detector array is fed by free space millimeter-wave optics. Each frequency band has a field of view of approximately 22' X 26'. The telescope was commissioned in 2007 and has completed its third year of operations. We discuss the major components of the telescope, camera, and related systems, and summarize the instrument performance.
The physical properties of galactic cirrus emission are not well characterized. BOOMERANG is a balloon-borne experiment designed to study the cosmic microwave background at high angular resolution in ...the millimeter range. The BOOMERANG 245 and 345 GHz channels are sensitive to interstellar signals, in a spectral range intermediate between FIR and microwave frequencies. We look for physical characteristics of cirrus structures in a region at high galactic latitudes (b ~ -40°) where BOOMERANG performed its deepest integration, combining the BOOMERANG data with other available data sets at different wavelengths. We have detected eight emission patches in the 345 GHz map, consistent with cirrus dust in the Infrared Astronomical Satellite maps. The analysis technique we have developed allows us to identify the location and the shape of cirrus clouds, and to extract the flux from observations with different instruments at different wavelengths and angular resolutions. We study the integrated flux emitted from these cirrus clouds using data from Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), DIRBE, BOOMERANG and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe in the frequency range 23-3000 GHz (13 mm-100 μm wavelength). We fit the measured spectral energy distributions with a combination of a gray body and a power-law spectra considering two models for the thermal emission. The temperature of the thermal dust component varies in the 7-20 K range and its emissivity spectral index is in the 1-5 range. We identified a physical relation between temperature and spectral index as had been proposed in previous works. This technique can be proficiently used for the forthcoming Planck and Herschel missions data.
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