The XFaster power spectrum and likelihood estimator for the analysis of cosmic microwave background maps
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We present the XFaster analysis package, a fast, iterative angular power spectrum estimator based on a diagonal approximation to the quadratic Fisher matrix estimator. It uses Monte Carlo simulations to compute noise biases and filter transfer functions and is thus a hybrid of both Monte Carlo and quadratic estimator methods. In contrast to conventional pseudo-Cℓ–based methods, the algorithm described here requires a minimal number of simulations and does not require them to be precisely representative of the data to estimate accurate covariance matrices for the bandpowers. The formalism works with polarization-sensitive observations and also data sets with identical, partially overlapping, or independent survey regions. The method was first implemented for the analysis of BOOMERanG data and also used as part of the Planck analysis. Here we describe the full, publicly available analysis package, written in Python, as developed for the analysis of data from the 2015 flight of the Spider instrument. The package includes extensions for self-consistently estimating null spectra and estimating fits for Galactic foreground contributions. We show results from the extensive validation of XFaster using simulations and its application to the Spider data set.
Date Issued
2021-12-01
Date Acceptance
2021-11-25
Citation
The Astrophysical Journal: an international review of astronomy and astronomical physics, 2021, 922 (2), pp.1-17
ISSN
0004-637X
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Start Page
1
End Page
17
Journal / Book Title
The Astrophysical Journal: an international review of astronomy and astronomical physics
Volume
922
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Author(s)
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000722398000001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
2003 FLIGHT
POLARIZATION
ANISOTROPY
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 132
Date Publish Online
2021-11-25