Case for Planck Urgency Funding from STFC
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Institute of Astronomy
Abstract
I seek urgency funding of 12 months support from STFC funding to continue employing a postdoc, currently funded by the UK Space Agency, to
contribute to the Planck power spectrum and likelihood analysis for the third Planck data release scheduled for the late 2015/early 2016. The
priority in this work will be to eliminate residual systematics in the Planck polarisation likelihood at high multipoles. In addition, we will contribute
to the validation of the Planck high frequency instrument polarisation data at low multipoles using novel cross-spectrum quadratic estimators.
contribute to the Planck power spectrum and likelihood analysis for the third Planck data release scheduled for the late 2015/early 2016. The
priority in this work will be to eliminate residual systematics in the Planck polarisation likelihood at high multipoles. In addition, we will contribute
to the validation of the Planck high frequency instrument polarisation data at low multipoles using novel cross-spectrum quadratic estimators.
Planned Impact
Planck research involves the development of advanced modelling techniques which are now actively being applied to development of optics through a small spin out enterprise. Visualisation techniques developed to support
the analysis of X-ray data have led to the development and open source release to the wider community of a fully featured interactive plotting package.
the analysis of X-ray data have led to the development and open source release to the wider community of a fully featured interactive plotting package.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| George Efstathiou (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Abbott T
(2016)
Cosmology from cosmic shear with Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data
in Physical Review D
Ade PA
(2015)
Joint analysis of BICEP2/keck array and Planck Data.
in Physical review letters
Collaboration P
(2016)
VizieR Online Data Catalog: Optical ident. and redshifts of Planck SZ sources (Planck+, 2016)
in VizieR Online Data Catalog
Harrison D
(2015)
Validation of Bayesian posterior distributions using a multidimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Perrott Y
(2015)
Comparison of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements from Planck and from the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager for 99 galaxy clusters
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
| Description | The main purpose of this grant was to extract information on low multipole polarisation from Planck data. These are very difficult measurements and required the identification and correction of various systematic errors. Our primary contribution was to develop new statistical techniques to extract the polarisation signals and to validate the data. Our work was very successful and has led to a new determination of the epoch at which starlight ionised hydrogen in our Universe. |
| Exploitation Route | Via new statistical techniques |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |