CBASS-South: Completing the C-Band All Sky Survey for the Southern Skies

California Institute Of Technology, Pasadena CA

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of the program is to complete the analysis (and release) of maps of the southern half of an all sky radio (5 GHz frequency) intensity and polarization survey. This will aid in the removal of contaminating foregrounds from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) studies and will also provide information about our Galaxy's Interstellar Medium (ISM) and magnetic fields. Broader impacts include training of students in instrumentation, international collaboration with students, and a broad outreach program targeting audiences from a variety of age groups and cultural backgrounds. Members of the proposing team play an important role in the development and execution of these programs. The C-Band All Sky Survey (C-BASS) is a radio survey at 5 GHz of the entire sky in total intensity and linear polarization, with resolution of 0.73 degrees, sensitivity of about 0.1 mK rms, and minimal corruption by instrumental systematic errors. The award will allow C-BASS to fulfill its primary goals of characterizing emission mechanisms of the ISM, determining an all-sky template for polarized emission from the Galaxy, and allowing for more accurate separation of intrinsic CMB signals from foreground emission, thus enabling CMB polarization experiments to realize their full potential. CMB polarization is being measured from space by the Planck satellites, and by several current and future ground-based and balloon-borne experiments supported by NSF, NASA, DOE and other agencies.