Characterization of foreground emission on degree angular scales for CMB B -mode observations Thermal dust and synchrotron signal from Planck and WMAP data

• Published in: Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) Vol. 588; p. A65
• Main Authors: Krachmalnicoff, N, Baccigalupi, C, Aumont, J, Bersanelli, M, Mennella, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.04.2016
• Subjects: Amplitudes; Anisotropy; Confidence intervals; Contamination; Cosmic microwave background; Dust; Emission; Synchrotrons
• ISSN: 0004-6361; 1432-0746
• DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201527678

We quantify the contamination from polarized diffuse Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust emissions to the B modes of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies on the degree angular scale, using data from the Planck and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellites. In this way we estimate the amplitude and frequency of the foreground minimum for each analyzed region. We detect both dust and synchrotron signal on degree angular scales and at a 3s confidence level in 28 regions. Here the minimum of the foreground emission is found at frequencies between 60 and 100 GHz with an amplitude expressed in terms of the equivalent tensor-to-scalar ratio, rFG,min, between ~0.06 and ~1. Our results indicate that, with the current sensitivity at low frequency, it is not possible to exclude the presence of synchrotron contamination to CMB cosmological B modes at the level requested to measure a gravitational waves signal with r = 0.01 at frequency 100 GHz anywhere.