Thesis Topic: Foreground emission and Cosmic Microwave background intrinsic anisotropies
Thesis Supervisor: Paola Andreani
Abstract
Since its discovery the Cosmic Microwave Radiation (CMB) has been one of the pillars of modern Cosmology. Measurements of its spectrum firmly established the hot big bang model as the basis of our understanding of cosmology. Measurements of the spatial anisotropies provide information on the structural formation of the Universe, inflation in its early stages, dark matter type and abundance, the determination of cosmological parameters (H_0, Omega _m , Omega _Lambda , etc.), the geometry and dynamics of the Universe, the thermal history at the recombination epoch, etc.
The determination of the CMB properties is however hampered by the faintness of its signals in particular in the intensity and polarization anisotropies and by the diffuse foreground emission -- due to our Galaxy and extragalactic sources -- which represents the main contaminant even away from the Galactic plane.
This thesis deals with the characterization of the foreground emission through the study of the far-infrared emission as measured by Herschel observations towards two high Galactic latitude regions which have been and will be observed by two CMB experiments (BICEP2 and EBEX).
Herschel at 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500 micron measurements are allocated and will likely carried out in open time during 2012. To enhance statistics and tune algorithms Herschel archive observations will be also used.
Further development of this work is the application of already tested algorithms to disentangle the foreground emission from the CMB maps and the determination of the CMB intrinsic emission.
Follow-up observations with ALMA are also foreseen.