Continuing Planck Surveyor LPAC Support

The Planck surveyor satellite is due for launch in 2008. It will create all-sky maps over 30-850GHz, allowing observation of galactic synchrotron and free-free emission at low frequencies, galactic dust emission at high frequencies, and emission from extragalactic sources due to these physical processes as well as other sources such as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. Primarily, it will observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in both intensity and polarization and allow us to reconstruct the state of the primordial plasma, and thereby measure the underlying cosmological parameters. The task of the Imperial group, the London Planck Analysis Centre (LPAC) is primarily the geometric calibration of Planck/HFI: we determine the layout of the focal plane and the shape of the telescope beam using in situ measurements of planets and more distant point sources. We are also involved in several of the Planck Working Groups responsible for creating the intermediate and final data products: the various point-source catalogues to be shared with Herschel and other instruments, the CMB and foreground maps, and the CMB power spectrum. The case for support has already been reviewed and approved by the UK Herschel-Planck Oversight Committee (HPOC) in September 2006. Subsequent discussions with PPARC/STFC have been held to agree programme details.