A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Ba

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A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Angular Power Spectrum with DASI
Citation
Halverson, Nils William
(2002)
A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Angular Power Spectrum with DASI.
Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology.
doi:10.7907/BEJN-HQ49.
Abstract
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has long been recognized as an astounding source of information about the early Universe. In this thesis we describe the design,
implementation, and first-year results of the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), a compact interferometer designed to measure the angular power spectrum of the CMB. We discuss details of the optics, receivers, and power spectrum analysis, including the use of constraint matrices to project out contaminants and test for correlations with diffuse foreground templates.

We present a measurement of the CMB angular power spectrum in the multipole range l ≈ 100- 900 in nine bands. The measured fluctuations have a temperature spectral index of β = -0.1 ± 0.2 (1σ) consistent with CMB. We find no evidence of foregrounds other than point sources in the data. We detect a first peak in the power spectrum at l ~ 200, a second peak in the power spectrum at l ~ 550, and a rise in the power spectrum at l ~ 800 which is indicative of a third, consistent with inflationary theories.

Using the DASI measurement along with COBE DMR data, and adopting conservative priors on the Hubble parameter h > 0.45 and an optical depth due to reionization 0.0 ≤ τ_c ≤ 0.4, we constrain the total density of the Universe Ω_(tot) = 1.04 ± 0.06, the spectral index of the primordial density fluctuations n_s = 1.01^(+0.08)_(-0.06), and the physical baryon density Ω_bh^2 = 0.022^(+0.004)_(-0.003) among others (all 68% confidence limits). These constraints are consistent with inflation and estimates of Ω_bh^2 from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. With prior h = 0.72 ± 0.08, we constrain the matter density Ω_m = 0.40 ± 0.15, and the vacuum energy density Ω_Λ = 0.60 ± 0.15, indicating from CMB data the presence of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe.
Item Type:
Thesis (Dissertation (Ph.D.))
Subject Keywords:
Applied Physics
Degree Grantor:
California Institute of Technology
Division:
Engineering and Applied Science
Major Option:
Applied Physics
Thesis Availability:
Public (worldwide access)
Research Advisor(s):
Carlstrom, John E.
Thesis Committee:
Vahala, Kerry J. (chair)
Carlstrom, John E.
Johnson, William Lewis
Lange, Andrew E.
Phillips, Thomas G.
Readhead, Anthony C. S.
Defense Date:
17 September 2001
Record Number:
CaltechTHESIS:05022011-085219561
Persistent URL:
DOI:
10.7907/BEJN-HQ49
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6367
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CaltechTHESIS
Deposited By:
Tony Diaz
Deposited On:
11 May 2011 17:35
Last Modified:
18 Aug 2022 23:26
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A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave
Background Angular Power Spectrum with

DASI
Thesis by

Nils W. Halverson
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California
2002
(Defended September 17, 2001)

Nils W. Halverson

III

Acknowledgements
Graduate school has been a long journey for me, occasionally meandering, (almost)
always enjoyable, and in the end immensely rewarding. My advisor John Carlstrom
has been an unebbing source of support through the entire process. I first met John
when he was a Millikan Fellow at Caltech, and I was a prospective graduate student.
We have both changed quite a bit in the intervening years, but John has never ceased
to encourage me, coax me, and humor my (very occasional) hard-headedness.
I have been privileged to work with a group of very talented people at the University of Chicago. John Carlstrom, John Kovac, Erik Leitch, and Clem Pryke have
become familiar company. We have learned each other's strengths and weaknesses,
and over the years we have achieved more than the sum of our parts, in an environment where ideas (even stupid ones!) are freely discussed in an atmosphere of trust
and respect.
Aside from those of us in Chicago, there are many other people who have contributed to DASI's success. I am indebted to colleagues who have headed west, Mark
Dragovan and Bill Holzapfel, for their dedication to the project. The CBr team at
Caltech, John Cartwright, Brian Mason, Steve Padin, Tim Pearson, Tony Readhead,
and Martin Shepherd have provided DASl with invaluable hardware, software, and
technical expertise. Ethan Schartman and Sam LaRoque have spent long hours in
the lab doing a myriad of jobs; Gene Davidson and John Yamasaki had the guts to
spend the first winter with the telescope at the South Pole. Finally, the folks at the
Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica have supported DASl throughout its
deployment with expert care.
I survived my first two years of graduate school at Cal tech with the help of many

people. Steve Sanders, Gilad Almogy, and I did battle with first-year problem sets
together. Thomas Biittgenbach and Garrett Reisman sustained my interest in flying,
and encouraged me to explore my hedonistic side. Jose Navarro gave me levity, and
reminded me to taste the pleasures of life outside of work (including his Paella!).
Here in Chicago, I have been tirelessly fed by my friends Gary Wong and Michelle
Molina, and entertained by their son Sam during the many evenings that I have been
too busy to cook for myself. Diana Steele introduced me to early morning open-water
swimming in Lake Michigan, through which I discovered both a bit of local wilderness,
and the Hyde Park community at its finest.
My early mentors in the art of science include Tom Phillips at Caltech, my undergraduate advisor Doug Osheroff at Stanford, and Ben Tigner, who, as Doug's
graduate student, took me on unassumingly and as a peer. My high school physics
teacher Pat Hogan was a wonderful teacher; understated and patient, he thoughtfully
answered my questions, encouraged my after-class experimental forays , and tolerated
the damages I occasionally incurred on his equipment. My parents Jon and Anne
were my very first science teachers. I have fond memories of my mother helping
my brother Anders and me to pluck butterfly eggs from sprigs of dill in the garden
for later observation, and my father showing us the stars through his 8" Newtonian
telescope.
My family have always encouraged unfettered exploration, intellectually, vocationally, and in matters of the heart. They have stood behind me during this entire
venture, and I couldn't have done it without them. It is to them that I dedicate this
thesis.

Abstract
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has long been recognized as an astounding
source of information about the early Universe. In this thesis we describe the design,
implementation, and first-year results of the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer
(DASI), a compact interferometer designed to measure the angular power spectrum
of the CMB. We discuss details of the optics, receivers, and power spectrum analysis,
including the use of constraint matrices to project out contaminants and test for
correlations with diffuse foreground templates.
We present a measurement of the CMB angular power spectrum in the multi pole
range I "" 100- 900 in nine bands. The measured fluctuations have a temperature
spectral index of (J = -0.1 ± 0.2 (10'), consistent with CMB. We find no evidence
of foregrounds other than point sources in the data. We detect a first peak in the
power spectrum at I ~ 200, a second peak in the power spectrum at I ~ 550, and a
rise in the power spectrum at I ~ 800 which is indicative of a third, consistent with
inflationary theories.
Using the DASI measurement along with COBE DMR data, and adopting conservative priors on the Hubble parameter h > 0.45 and an optical depth due to reionization 0.0 ::; Tc ::; 0.4, we constrain the total density of the Universe !ltot = 1.04 ± 0.06,
the spectral index of the primordial density fluctuations n. = 1.01~g:g~, and the
physical baryon density !lbh2 = 0.022~g:gg~, among others (all 68% confidence limits). These constraints are consistent with inflation and estimates of !lbh2 from Big
Bang Nucleosynthesis. With prior h = 0.72 ± 0.08, we constrain the matter density
!lm = 0.40 ± 0.15, and the vacuum energy density !lA = 0.60 ± 0.15, indicating from

CMB data the presence of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe.

Contents
Acknowledgements

iii

Abstract

Introduction

1.1 Theoretical Overview

l.2

l.1.1

Inflation . . .

1.1.2

Acoustic Oscillations

l.l.3

The Angular Power Spectrum

CMB Anisotropy Measurements

l.3 The DASI Experiment

l.4 Thesis Outline. . . . .

DASI Instrument Overview

2.1

Introduction . . . . . . . .

2.2

Interferometry and the CMB .

2.3 Instrument Configuration.

2.4

Optics ..

2.5

Receivers.

2.6 Downconverter and Correia tor

2.7 Telescope Control and Data Handling .

2.8 Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.9 Tower Infrastructure & Environmental Design

vii

CONTENTS

2.10 Telescope Deployment

2.11 Ground Shields . . .

2.12 The South Pole Site

3 Optics Design

3.1

Introduction.

3.2

Review of Previous Work.

3.2.1

Fundamental Principles of Corrugated Horns .

3.2.2

Broadband Throat Design . . . . . . . .

3.2.3

Return Loss in Wide Flare-Angle Horns

3.2.4

Lensed Corrugated Horns

...... .

Design of the DASI Lensed Corrugated Horn .

3.3.1

Design of the Wide-Angle Horn . . . .

3.3.2

Design of the DASI Horn Lens and Shroud

3.3

3.4

3.5

Measurement Results . . . . . . . .

3.4.1

Return Loss Measurements.

3.4.2

Beam Measurements ..

3.4.3

Coupling Measurements

Summary

4 Receivers

59
61

4.1 Introduction

4.2

RF Design.

4.3

Cryogenic Design

4.4

Performance.

5 Observations

5.1

Observing Strategy

5.2

Pointing ..

5.3

Calibration

viii

CONTENTS

5.3.1

Absolute Calibration

5.4

Data Reduction

5.5

Field Images. .

5.6

DASI Detected Point Sources

6 Analysis Formalism

6.1

Introd uction . . .

6.2

The Fundamental Observable

6.3

The Interferometer Response.

6.4

The Datavector and Data Covariance Matrix .

6.4.1

The Theory Covariance Matrix

6.4.2

The Noise Covariance Matrix

104

6.4.3

Visibility Sensitivity . . .

104

6.5

The Simple Quadratic Estimator

105

6.6

The Maximum Likelihood Estimator

109

6.7

Iterative Quadratic Estimator

110

6.7.1

Estimator Formalism.

111

6.7.2

Single Iteration Example

114

6.8

Constraint Matrix Formalism

115

6.9

Non-Gaussian Uncertainties

118

6.10 Band-Power Window Functions

121

6.11 Cosmological Parameter Estimation .

123

6.12 Likelihood Analysis Implementation.

126

6.13 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133

7 Results

134

7.1

Introduction.

134

7.2

Angular Power Spectrum Analysis.

135

7.2 .1

Analysis Formalism Summary

135

CONTENTS

7.2.2

Noise Estimation ..

136

7.2.3

Ground Constraints.

136

7.2.4

Point Source Constraints.

137

7.3

Angular Power Spectrum Results

138

7.4

Consistency Tests . .

140

7.5

Diffuse Foregrounds.

143

8 Conclusions

145

Bibliography

153

List of Tables
3.1

DASI lensed corrugated horn parameters. . . . .

3.2

DASI lensed corrugated horn beam parameters.

4.1

DASI receiver component specifications.

4.2

DASI receiver thermal load budget. ...

4.3

Noise temperature contributions of various receiver components.

5.1

DASI CMS field row coordinates and dates observed.

5.2

DASI detected point sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7.1

Angular power spectrum band powers and uncertainties.

141

7.2

Correlation coefficient matrix for the DASI band powers.

141

8.1

Cosmological parameter constraints from DASI+DMR.

149

List of Figures
1.1

A typical theoretical power spectrum for an adiabatic inflationary model.

1.2

The angular power spectrum dependence on cosmological parameters.

1.3

Status of CMB angular power spectrum measurements in 1995.

1.4

Status of CMB angular power spectrum measurements in 2000.

2.1

The DASI telescope at the Admunsen-Scott South Pole Station.

2.2 Two-element interferometer response pattern.

2.3

The DASI aperture plate configuration and (u, v) plane sensitivity. .

2.4

The DASI prototype Ka-band receiver assembly. . .

2.5

Technical drawing of the DASI telescope structure.

2.6

Preliminary design of telescope-tower interface.

2.7 Telescope winter snow accumulation. . . . .

2.8

The DASI telescope being lifted to its tower.

2.9

The DASI ground shields. . . . . . . . . . .

2.10 Cumulative opacity distribution at the South Pole measured by DASI.

2.11 Short baseline visibility noise for the first season of observations.

3.1

Geometry of corrugated waveguide . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.2

Dispersion curves for corrugated waveguide hybrid modes.

3.3

Cross sections of three corrugated horn throat types.

3.4

Geometry of a meniscus lens.

............ .

3.5

An exploded view of the DASI lensed corrugated horn.

3.6

Geometry of the DASI corrugated horn throat. . . . . .

3.7

Cylindrical slot depths for presenting an open or short.

LIST OF FIGURES

XII

3.8

Estimated return loss for the DASI corrugated horn throat design.

3.9

Theoretical aperture E-field distributions and beam patterns. . .

3.10 The measured return loss for the DASI lensed corrugated horn. .

3.ll Beam patterns for the un lensed DASI corrugated horn.

3.12 Beam patterns for the lensed DASI corrugated horn.

3.13 DASI lensed horn beam pattern at f = 30 GHz, enlarged. .

3.14 Time domain gate used for coupling measurements.

3.15 Measured coupling between adjacent horns.

4.1

DASI receiver schematic diagram.

4.2

DASI receiver physical layout. . .

4.3

Interior of the open DASI receiver.

4.4

DASI HEMT amplifier gain and noise temperature curves.

4.5

Receiver cool down performance.

4.6

Receiver waveguide thermal break.

4.7

Detail of the horn throat.

.....

4.8

DASI receiver noise temperatures measured during calibration.

4.9

DASI receiver physical temperatures throughout the first season.

5.1

Locations of the DASI CMB fields, plotted over the !RAS 100 J.1.m map. 77

5.2

A DASI field image before and after ground and point source removal.

5.3

CLEANed images of five DASI CMB fields, showing image noise. .

5.4

Images of the 32 DASI fields, at 20' resolution. . .

6.1

Simple schematic of a two-element interferometer.

6.2

The aperture autocorrelation function. . . . . . .

100

6.3

The DASI aperture configuration and (u, v) plane coverage ..

100

6.4

The diagonal DASI variance window functions. . . . . . . . .

101

6.5

Fractional power spectrum uncertainty vs. rms signal-to-noise ratio.

108

6.6

Sample of the noise and constraint matrices. . . . . . . . . . . .

ll7

6.7

Sample dust map and dust template for one of the DASI fields.

118

LIST OF FIGURES

Xlll

6.8

Band-power window functions for the nine DASI bands . . . . . . .

124

6.9

Sample area of integration for a theory covariance matrix element.

127

6.10 Theory covariance matrix non-zero elements for a single field.

128

6.11 Test of the analysis software using simulated data. . . . . . . .

132

7.1

Angular power spectrum from the first season of DASI observations.

139

7.2

Angular power spectrum of individual field rows. . . . . . . . .

143

8.1

The DASI angular power spectrum with cosmological models.

147

8.2

Marginal likelihood distributions, varying the prior on h.

148

8.3

Marginal likelihood distributions, varying the prior on Te.

150

8.4

April 2001 power spectra from DASI, BOOMERanG, and MAXIMA.

151

Chapter 1

Introd uction
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, first discovered in 1964 by Penzias & Wilson (1965), is an ancient glowing jewel; imprinted with an abundance of
information about the Universe in its infancy, it continues to enrich us some 35 years
after its discovery. The CMB is relic radiation from the epoch ~ 400,000 years after
the Big Bang when light decoupled from matter as the Universe cooled and expanded.
Subtle temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, first observed by the COBE DMR experiment (Smoot et al. 1992), provide
information about density perturbations in the nearly homogeneous early Universe,
well before the non-linear gravitational collapse of matter led to the structure we see
today. Temperature anisotropy on different angular scales gives us information about
physical processes operating on different physical length scales in the early Universe.
Angular scales ~ 10 were causally unconnected at the epoch of decoupling; anisotropy
on these scales represents the primordial density inhomogeneity of matter (see, e.g.,
White et al. 1994). On scales

:s 1 gravitational interactions enhance the density

perturbations, leaving characteristic features in the CMB angular power spectrum
(see, e.g., Hu et al. 1997). Measurements of this angular power spectrum can be
used to test cosmological theories, and within the context of standard cosmological
models, they can be used to determine fundamental cosmological parameters (Knox
1995; Jungman et al. 1996). The Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), the
subject of this thesis, is designed to measure the angular power spectrum of the CMB

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

on angular scales of ~ 15'-2°, enabling us to test the validity of currently favored
cosmological theories, and to determine the contributions of baryonic matter, dark
matter, and vacuum energy to the total density of the Universe.

1.1

Theoretical Overview

In the most widely accepted cosmological theories, the evolution of the Universe can
be split into three major epochs: an inflationary epoch during which the Universe
expanded exponentially and generated an initial spectrum of density perturbations,
the plasma epoch during which the perturbations evolved through gravitationally
driven acoustic oscillations, and the structure formation epoch which started when
the Universe became neutral, allowing gravitational collapse into the structures we
see in the present-day Universe. The CMB photons come to us from the end of
the plasma epoch at a redshift z. ~ 1000, corresponding to an age of ~ 400,000
years. Prior to this time, photons were tightly coupled to electrons via Thomson
scattering; the electrons were in turn coupled to the baryons. At the end of the
plasma epoch (the so-called epoch of decoupling) the fractional ionization of baryons
dropped precipitously, driven primarily by the decrease in electron number density
due to the Universal expansion (see discussion in Kolb & Turner 1990). The mean free
path of photons became nearly infinite (larger than the causal horizon), and photons
propagated unimpeded. To the present-day observer, these photons are detectable as
the CMB, emanating from the surface of last scattering some 15 billion light-years
distant, and carrying with them precious information about the early Universe.

1.1.1

Inflation

The theory of inflation (Guth 1981; Linde 1982; Albrecht & Steinhardt 1982) was originally proposed as an explanation for the apparent isotropy in the eMB on causally
unconnected angular scales (the horizon problem), and as an explanation for evidence

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

that the density of the Universe is nearly equal to the critical density, where it has
a spatially flat geometry (the flatness problem). The density of the early Universe
would need to be fine-tuned to extraordinary precision to avoid diverging to a grossly
closed or open geometry at the present epoch (Dicke 1970), but prior to inflation,
a mechanism for fine-tuning the total density to the critical density was not known.
The inflation theory was further developed as a natural mechanism which predicts
nearly scale invariant adiabatic density perturbations as the source of inhomogeneity
in the Universe (Guth & Pi 1982; Hawking 1982; Starobinsky 1982; Bardeen et al.
1983). Scale invariant perturbations were first proposed about a decade earlier by
Harrison (1970) and Zeldovich (1972) from other theoretical arguments, although the
mechanism for generating these perturbations was not then postulated.
Inflation is a phase transition which occurred at Grand Unified Theory (GUT)
energy scales, at a time t ~ 10- 35 s, when a scalar field evolved from a quasi-stable
state of non-zero potential, or false vacuum state, to the true vacuum state at zero
potential (see, e.g., review by Narlikar & Padmanabhan 1991). During this transition,
the Universe underwent exponential expansion of 0(10 3°) e-foldings. Quantum mechanical fluctuations in the field crossed the causal horizon (or Hubble radius) during
exponential expansion, and were stretched to cosmological length scales. During the
exponential expansion phase, the fluctuations were produced under approximately
identical conditions on all length scales, generating a nearly scale invariant spectrum
of perturbations. At the end of the inflation epoch, these fluctuations re-entered
the horizon as the Hubble radius grew. Inflation solves the horizon problem since
the observable Universe was in causal contact and in thermal equilibrium in the preinflationary epoch. It also solves the flatness problem since the exponential expansion
locally flattens spatial curvature to high precision.

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1.2

Acoustic Oscillations

The primordial adiabatic density perturbations gave rise to gravity-driven acoustic
oscillations in the plasma which lead to a series of harmonic peaks in the CMB angular
power spectrum (Peebles & Yu 1970; Bond & Efstathiou 1984; Vittorio & Silk 1984).
The acoustic oscillations responsible for degree-scale anisotropy evolved linearly in
a cool (10 4- 10 3 K) Universe in a realm well described by classical physics, and may
be understood in terms of a simple harmonic oscillator (see Scott & White 1995; Hu
et al. 1997, for a review of CMB physics). The photons provided the restoring force
and the baryons provided the inertial mass in the photon-baryon fluid. In a Universe
where the matter content is dominated by a non-relativistic ("cold") dark matter
(CDM) component, as is presently favored, the primordial density fluctuations in
CDM provided the gravitational potential wells in which the fluid oscillated. Initially,
the fluid had zero velocity (apart from the overall Universal expansion). As the
Universe evolved, progressively larger regions came into causal contact. Fourier modes
k with spatial wavelengths k- 1 comparable to the sound horizon s = J csd'/) (where '/)
is conformal time) began to compress, with baryons falling into the CDM potential
wells. The fluid compressed until photon pressure provided sufficient resistance to reexpand the fluid. These driven oscillations continued until the epoch of decoupling,

z., when the photons ceased to scatter, preserving information on the phase and
amplitudes of the oscillating modes and carrying this information to the present-day
observer.
Because the oscillations started with the same initial conditions and had periods
which were proportional to the wavelength of the mode, the phases of the modes
at last scattering (z.) were proportional to their wavenumber k, resulting a series
of harmonic peaks in the power spectrum, where the modes were at extrema in the
oscillation cycle. The fundamental (largest spatial scale) peak results from modes
which had reached their first state of maximum compression (1/2 cycle) at z •. The
second peak is due to modes which had time to progress in the oscillation cycle

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

to the state of maximum rarefaction (1 cycle); higher order peaks represent modes
at an integral number of half-cycles. Thus odd-numbered peaks represent states of
maximum compression, and even peaks represent states of maximum rarefaction. The
harmonic peaks are damped at small spatial scales (the so-called damping tail). This
is due to two effects: the finite mean free path of the photons in the plasma prior to
decoupling allows photons to diffuse between hot and cold spots, and, because the
epoch of decoupling is not instantaneous, spatial wavelengths shorter than the finite
thickness of the surface of last scattering destructively interfere.

1.1.3

The Angular Power Spectrum

From the present observer's point of view, the density fluctuations at the epoch of
decoupling appear in the angular power spectrum of CMB temperature fluctuations.
The fractional temperature fluctuations in a direction s on the sky can be decomposed
into spherical harmonics:

1:::.; (8) = L atmYlm(S).

(1.1)

t,m

The theoretical angular power spectrum C t is a statistical average over an ensemble
of universes of the temperature spherical harmonic coefficients,
(1.2)
The multipole moment I is inversely proportional to angular scale, 1 ~ 0- 1 • Experiments which measure the angular power spectrum measure the statistical properties
of temperature fluctuations in our (one realization of the) CMB sky. Thus, we are
inherently limited in our measurement of the power spectrum C t by the number of
samples (21 + 1 if the entire sky is observed) for a given multipole moment I. A
more detailed discussion of the observable is given in §6.2. A typical angular power
spectrum is shown in Fig. 1.1.
The angular power spectrum is influenced by a number of fundamental parameters such as the density of baryons f2 b , cold dark matter density f2 cdm , vacuum

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Angular scale (degrees)
10

8000
7000
N~

6000

5000

:.:

U-

Primordial
fluctuations

0.1

Acoustic
oscillations

Damping
tail

~ 4000

->:

3000

S? 2000
1000
10'

l~
Multipole moment I

Figure 1.1 A typical theoretical power spectrum for an adiabatic inflationary model. The physical

processes which determine the predicted features depend on the angular scale.

Angular scales

.2: 1 are causally unconnected at the epoch of decouplingj the power spectrum at these scales

is determined by the primordial fluctuations, which inflation predicts are nearly scale invariant
adiabatic fluctuations. On angular scales ;S 10 gravitationally driven acoustic oscillations lead to a
series of harmonic peaks in the angular power spectrum. Power on angular scales;S 0.10 is damped
due to photon diffusion in the plasma and destructive interference within the finite thickness of the
last scattering surface.

energy density OA, the Hubble parameter h, the spatial spectral index of the primordial fluctuations n" and the optical depth of reionization Te, among others. The
total matter density is given by Om == Ob + Oedm and the total density is given by

0 101 == Om + OA· Here, the densities of the various components are expressed as
ratios with respect to the critical density, 0i == p;/ Peril where Peril = 3HJ/(87rG) is
the density at which the Universe is spatially flat, Ho is the Hubble constant and
G is the gravitational constant. The Hubble parameter h is given by the relation

Ho = lOOh km S-1 Mpc- 1 . Within the framework of the most widely accepted CDM
models, the CMB angular power spectrum can be calculated with precision given a
set of cosmological parameters, and code is freely available which can rapidly generate

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

power spectra (Zaldarriaga & Seljak 2000). The models which we use in Chapter 8
to place constraints on cosmological parameters exclude such possibilities as tensor
perturbations due to gravity waves and a "hot" dark matter component (i.e., massive
neutrinos). Both are thought to be unlikely to contribute to the CMB angular power
spectrum at a significant level compared with the DASI measurement uncertainties
(Lyth 1997; Dodelson et al. 1996).
A detailed discussion of the effect of various parameters on the power spectrum
is beyond the scope of this work, but several key dependencies should be noted.
First, the angular scale of the first peak is determined by the spatial geometry of the
Universe (which is a function of Sl tot ), since the apparent angular scale of the first
peak is influenced primarily by the geodesics along which the photons travel to the
present-day observer. Second, the ratio of the even to odd peak amplitudes depends
on the baryon number density, which is a function of Sl b h2 This is due to the fact
that the the presence of baryons dynamically influences the depth of the potential
wells, lowering the zero-point of the acoustic oscillations, which in turn suppresses the
amplitudes of the rarefaction phase. Finally, a third harmonic peak of comparable or
greater magnitude than the second is the signature of baryonic matter re-compressing
in dark matter potential wells, and is a tell-tale sign of the presence of non-baryonic
cold dark matter (assuming a reasonable value for the spectral index ns)' Angular
power spectra showing the effect of varying Sltot. Sl b h2, and Sl cdm h 2 are shown in
Fig. 1.2.

1.2

CMB Anisotropy Measurements

Tremendous improvements in experimental sensitivity have been made since CMB
anisotropy on angular scales of ~ 10° was first detected by the COBE DMR experiment in 1992 (Smoot et al. 1992). By 1995, the year the DASI experiment was first
proposed, several detections of anisotropy had been made at degree angular scales,
although experimental sensitivity and I-space coverage were not sufficient to resolve

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

9~'r-------------------------.

9~r-------------------------'

8000

concordance model

- - - open uni verse

7000

- - concordance model

- - - high baryon

7000

N~ 6000

U-5000

g 6000
U-5000

;ii4~

'S:
~ 3000

4000

2~
I~

%~--~27oo~--4~00~--~6oo~--~8oo~--~I~

200

Multipolc moment I

400

600

800

1000

Multipolc moment I

12~

10000

N;; 8000

, ,,
,,,
, ,,
,,

6000

4000
2000

concordance model

--- low COM

,, ,, .... ,,

' - .... ~

%L---~57oo~---I~~~--~1~5oo;===~2~000'
Multipolc moment 1

Figure 1.2 The angular power spectrum dependence on cosmological parameters.
The
base model used for comparison is a favored "concordance" model which has parameters
(0" O,dm, OA, To. n" h) = (0.05, 0.65, 0.30, 0,1, 0.65). The top left panel shows that reducing the
total density of the Universe (0'0' 0, + O,dm + OA) moves the first peak to smaller angular scales.
The top right panel shows the effect of raising the baryon content, which suppresses the amplitude
of the second peak with respect to the first and third peaks. The lower middle panel shows the effect
of reducing the cold dark matter (CDM) content of the Universe, which suppresses the third peak

with respect to the first and second peaks.

the predicted first peak (see Fig. 1.3). In 1999 and 2000, experiments determined
the location of the degree-scale first peak (Miller et al. 1999; Mauskopf et al. 2000;
de Bernardis et al. 2000; Hanany et al. 2000), providing strong evidence that the
Universe is spatially flat (n,o' ~ 1), a key prediction of inflation (see Fig. 1.4). The
Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) also made the first detection by a single experiment
of a decrease in power in the dam ping tail region of the power spectrum (Padin et al.
2001b). While hints of structure at sub-degree angular scales were present in these

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

6000

5000

zs- 4000
~ 3000

COBE
FIRS

'I'

SK
Python

...

ARGO

Tenerife

SP94

MAX

MSAM

WD
[; OVRO
"V

* ATCA

S? 2000
1000 - = -¥
0L-__

~-L

_ __ _ _ __ _- L_ __ _ _ _

~~-b

10'

-4~~

10'

Multipole moment l

Figure 1.3 Status of CMB angular power spectrum measurements in 1995, from a compilation in

Scott et al. (1995). (See this paper for references to individual experiments.) The three experiments
probing multipole moments I > 500 are upper limits. Although multiple experiments had detections
at degree angular scales, a peak in the power spectrum was not clearly discernible.

results, harmonic peaks in the power spectrum were not yet apparent. This was the
experimental status in the period leading to the release of the DASI first-year results
(the measurements presented in this thesis) in April 2001.
A detection of a series of harmonic peaks in the CMS angular power spectrum
would provide additional strong evidence for the inflationary view of the early Universe, confirming another key prediction of inflation -

gravity driven acoustic oscil-

lations seeded by primordial adiabatic density perturbations. In addition , a precision
measurement of the eMS angular power spectrum in multiple bands extending from
the first peak through the multipole moment of the predicted third peak at l ~ 800
would enable us to place tight constraints on cosmological parameters such as Obh2
and Ocdmh2, in addition to OtDt, within the context of standard cosmological models.

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.4 Status of CMB angular power spectrum measurements in 2000. Multiple experiments

(Miller et al. 1999; Mauskopf et al. 2000; de Bernardis et al. 2000; Hanany et al. 2000) showed
the presence of a peak in the CMB angular power spectrum at I ~ 200, revealing the Universe is
spatially flat (Otot '" 1), confirming one of the key predictions of the inflationary theory. The Cosmic
Background Imager (CBI) made the first detection by a single experiment of decreasing power in
the damping tail (Padin et al. 2001 b), further supporting the standard cosmological model.

1.3

The DASI Experiment

DASI is one of a new generation of interferometers, including its sister instrument the
Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) (Pearson et al. 2000) and the Very Small Array
(VSA) (Jones 1997) designed specifically to measure the angular power spectrum
of the CMB. An interferometer is a natural choice for making a subtle difference
measurement of temperature fluctuations on the microwave sky. The response pattern
of each pair of antennas is a sinusoidally varying interference pattern on the sky, and
the sky brightness difference measurement is instantaneous. An interferometer makes
a direct measurement of the Fourier transform of the sky temperature fluctuations,
allowing a relatively straightforward analysis of the CMB angular power spectrum.
DASI is a compact cm-wavelength interferometer designed to measure the CMB

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

angular power spectrum in multiple bands in the range 100 < I < 900, corresponding
to the span of the first three harmonic peaks in a flat inflationary Universe. The instrument was deployed at the South Pole in November 2000, and made observations
throughout the following austral winter. In this thesis we present a measurement
of the angular power spectrum in nine bands across this I range with fractional uncertainties of 10- 20% and dominated by sample variance. With this measurement
we are able to test for the presence of multiple harmonic peaks in the CMB angular
spectrum, and place stringent constraints on fundamental cosmological parameters.

1.4

Thesis Outline

This thesis describes the design and implementation of the DASI instrument as well
as first-year results, including a precise measurement of the CMB angular power
spectrum in the range 100 < I < 900. A project of this magnitude is of course
a group effort, and many talented people have contributed to its success -

this is

acknowledged by the use of the first person plural throughout this work. The structure
of this thesis emphasizes the contributions of the author, which include the design and
development of the optics and receivers, deployment and testing of the telescope at
the South Pole, and data analysis, including the development of the power spectrum
analysis software. An overview of the instrument configuration and deployment is
given in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, we discuss the design and measurements of the
lensed corrugated horns which comprise the DASI optics; this material will soon be
submitted as a dedicated paper (Halverson & Carlstrom 2001). Chapter 4 gives the
details of the receiver design and measured performance at the South Pole. The first
year of observations with DASI is described in Chapter 5. The formalism for the power
spectrum analysis is introduced in Chapter 6, as well as a more detailed discussion of
the CMB observable and interferometry. The CMB angular power spectrum results
are given in Chapter 7. Finally, we draw some conclusions in Chapter 8, including a
discussion of cosmological parameter constraints. The material in Chapters 5 and 7

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

as well as the discussion of parameter constraints in Chapter 8 overlaps substantially
with the DASI first-year results papers (Leitch et al. 2001; Halverson et al. 2001;
Pryke et al. 2001) which were submitted to The Astrophysical Journal in April 2001.

Chapter 2

DASI Instrument Overview

2.1

Introduction

DASI is a compact centimeter-wavelength interferometer designed to image the CMB
primary anisotropy and measure its angular power spectrum at degree and sub-degree
angular scales (see Fig. 2.1). As an interferometer, DASI measures the Fourier transform of the sky temperature distribution directly. The instrument has 13 antenna
elements, consisting of 20-cm aperture-diameter lensed corrugated horns; the elements are configured to measure the CMB angular power spectrum in the multi pole
range 100 < I < 900 in multiple bands. All elements are mounted on a single alt-az
mount, which fixes the projected baselines and obviates an intermediate frequency
(IF) tracking delay. The receivers utilize cooled low-noise HEMT amplifiers operating
in Ka band, 26- 36 GHz. The signal is downconverted to a 2- 12 GHz IF output, and
the 10 GHz IF bandwidth is correlated in 1 GHz bands to provide spectral index
information. The telescope was successfully deployed at the South Pole during the
1999- 2000 austral summer; the data presented in this thesis were taken throughout
the following austral winter. This chapter partially draws upon previous papers on
the DASI instrument and experimental- setup- (tfalverson-et-al:- 1998;--beiteh-et- al-:-.- - - 2001).

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

Figure 2.1 The DASI telescope, perched atop a 35' tower attached to the Martin A. Pomerantz
Observatory (MAPO) building at the Admunsen-Scott South Pole Station , March 2000. The telescope was successfully deployed during the austral summer 1999-2000; the data presented in this
thesis were taken throughout the following austral winter.

2.2

Interferometry and the CMB

An interferometer is inherently a differencing instrument which is insensitive to the
constant component of the both the CMB and the Earth's atmosphere, and thus is an
excellent tool for measuring anisotropy. Unlike single-dish experiments which move
a beam mechanically in sweeps of constant elevation to map temperature differences
on the sky, an interferometer makes instantaneous difference measurements. The
response pattern on the sky for a given pair of antennas is a sinusoidal fringe pattern
attenuated by the primary beam of the individual antennas, Fig. 2.2. For a pair of
antennas with a physical separation (baseline) vector b, the center of the measured
Fourier components, labeled u or (u, v), is given by u = bx /)' and v = by/)', where

bx and by are the projections of the baseline normal to the line of sight, and), is the
observing wavelength. The approximate conversion to multipole moment is given by
I "" 27l'IUI (White et al. 1999a), with a width t,.1 that is related to the diameter of

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

the apertures in units of observing wavelength.
An interferometer directly measures the Fourier transform of the sky temperature
at many points in the Fourier plane, enabling the synthesis of two-dimensional images
from a single pointing on the sky and relatively straight-forward power spectrum
analysis. We can also design an observing strategy with widely separated pointings on
the sky which maximizes the number of independent samples of the sky, and reduces
the correlations between fields that make analysis more difficult. We are able to
tailor our observing strategy to achieve a given science goal, and eliminate potential
contamination from the ground through repeated observations of several fields at
constant elevation (see Chapter 5). A more rigorous description of the output of an
interferometer and the power spectrum analysis formalism is given in Chapter 6.

2.3

Instrument Configuration

The DASI antenna array consists of thirteen 20-cm diameter lensed corrugated horns,
compactly arranged on a 1.6-m diameter aperture plate, with antenna spacings designed to densely sample the CMB angular power spectrum in the angular wavenumber range 100 ;S 1 ;S 900 (see Fig. 2.3). The aperture plate may be rotated about
the pointing axis to increase (u, v) coverage and provide redundancy checks using
the three-fold rotational symmetry of the antenna pattern. The low-noise Ka-band
receivers have 10 GHz of IF bandwidth, correlated in ten 1 GHz bands with an analog correlator. DASI is an extremely sensitive instrument, able to detect rms sky
temperature fluctuations of 10 J.tK with a resolution of 20' in 24 hours with 10 GHz
bandwidth. All backend electronics, including the telescope control computer, receiver and local oscillator (LO) control, IF downconversion, and correlators reside in
three 9U height custom VME crates which are rigidly attached to the rear of the aperture plate structure near the back end of the receivers, and move with the receivers.
This eliminates the need for long cables which would compromise phase stability.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

(u, v) plane

Sky plane

Aperture plane

Figure 2.2 Two-element interferometer response pattern. The bottom panel depicts the aperture
configuration for a simple two-element interferometer with uniformly illuminated apertures. The
sky response (center panel) is a sinusoidal fringe pattern which is attenuated by the beam of a single
aperture (the primary beam); the angular wavelength of the fringe pattern is inversely proportional
to the separation (baseline) length Ibl of the apertures, in units of the observing wavelength A.
The (u,v) plane (top panel) is the Fourier conjugate plane of the sky plane. The interferometer is
sensitive to Fourier modes centered at u = ±b/A, with a finite width tapering to zero at 2D/A,
where D is the aperture diameter. The interferometer thus makes a direct measurement of the
angular power spectrum of the sky plane.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

'"
E0

'"I

00
0 . '0 • 0

····· .····.00
00
.' 0

o 0

-50

~ rI

100

- 100

u (A)

- 200

(oremin)

200

400

600

800 1000

mu ltipole

Figure 2.3 The top left panel shows the DASI aperture plate configuration (solid circles, with
dotted circles representing spare holes). DASI has 13 antenna elements and 78 baselines. The
aperture plane has three-fold rotational symmetry to provide redundant baseline lengths and as a
check for systematics. The top right panel depicts the instantaneous (u, v) coverage; the radial lines
of 10 points are a result of the 10 IF bands, which are correlated separately and increase the (u, v)
plane coverage. The bottom left panel is an image of a bright point source in one of the DASI fields,
representing the synthesized beam of the interferometer, and demonstrating DASI's superb imaging
capability. Radial lines are an artifact of the incomplete (u, v) plane coverage. The bottom right
panel depicts the window functions (each with arbitrary normalization) showing the I-range of the
instantaneous angular power spectrum sensitivity for the 26 independent baseline lengths at two
frequencies, 26.5 GRz and 35.5 GRz. This represents 1/5 of the 10 IF bands, which together are
too dense to display.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

2.4

Optics

Lensed corrugated horns were chosen as the antenna elements for DASI because of
their compactness and low crosstalk characteristics. To achieve maximum sensitivity,
each horn has a 20-cm aperture diameter, as large as possible within the constraint
of the 25-cm minimum baseline length. The full width half power (FWHP) angle
of the main beam is 3~4. Corrugated horns have the advantage of an unobstructed
and tapered aperture amplitude distribution with correspondingly low sidelobes, low
spillover, and minimal crosstalk between elements. A diffraction limited compact
horn is achieved by combining a wide-angle (30 0 semi-flare angle) corrugated horn
with a High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) lens to collimate the phase front at the
aperture.
The lens is meniscus with a refracting hyperbolic front surface, and a nonrefracting spherical rear surface to match the spherical wavefront of the wide-angle
horn (Clarricoats & Saha 1969). This particular lens type was chosen to increase
the aperture efficiency by redistributing power toward the outside of the lens. The
theoretical aperture efficiency for the DASI lensed horn is 84%, compared to 69% for
an un lensed diffraction limited corrugated horn. The lens material HDPE was chosen
for its desirable index of refraction, low dielectric loss, and machinability. With a loss
tangent tan <5 '" 170 X 10- 6 , a lens at ambient (polar) temperature contributes 2.5 K
to the system noise temperature. The lens has grooves ~ AI4 deep that act as an
anti-reflection coating. Chapter 3 describes in detail the design and measurement of
the DASI lensed horn. Figure 2.4 shows the DASI horn assembly and a prototype
DASI receiver.

2.5

Receivers

The RF input to the receivers is in Ka band, 26-36 GHz, downconverted to a 212 GHz IF using an LO at 38 GHz. Each receiver uses a 4-stage InP HEMT amplifier,

CHAPTER 2. DASI I NSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

Figure 2.4 The DASI prototype Ka-band receiver assembly. The antenna element is a 20 cm
diameter lensed corrugated horn which produces a 3~4 full width half power (FWHP) beam on the
sky. The receiver employs a 4-stage InP I-IEMT amp lifier, cooled to - 10 K by a two-stage dosed
cycle Helium refrigerator. A 38 GHz local oscillator (LO) downconverts the 26- 36 GHz RF band to
a 2- 12 GHz IF output.

cooled to 10 K with a closed cycle Helium refrigerator, as t he firs t-stage low-noise
amplifier, built at the University of Chicago from an NRAO design (Pospieszalski
1993; Pospieszalski et al. 1994). We chose a robust receiver design with a waveguide
vacuum break, warm lens, and warm hol'll throat, which slightly compromised the
receiver noise temperatures. The mean measured noise temperature of the receivers is
25 K; a typical measured system temperature at the South Pole site is 30 K, including
atmospheric thermal noise. The receivers are sensitive to circularly polarized light
using a 1/4 wave dielectric fin in waveguide to red uce contamination from linearly
polarized sources such as Galactic synchrotron emission. The receivers also employ
a front-end isolator to minimize crosstalk between receivers due to correlated HEMT
amplifier noise. Custom multilayered 9U x 340 mm YME cards using Altera 1 Field
Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology are used to control the receiver mixer
1 Al tera Corporation, 101 Innovation Drive, San J ose, California 95134 .

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

and amplifier biases, LO phaselock, and temperature monitors, as well as correlator
readout. Details of the receiver design and measurement are discussed in Chapter 4.

2.6

Downconverter and Correlator

The 10 GHz bandwidth IF signal is correlated in ten 1 GHz bands to provide spectral information, to ensure flat gain across each band, and to reduce decorrelation
due to finite bandwidth. The IF signal from each receiver is multi-bandpass filtered
to separate the signal into ten bands, each of which is separately downconverted to
1-2 GHz (L band) and amplified in a dedicated downconverter crate. The 13 x 10
down converted signals are correlated in ten identical analog correlators each of which
performs the real and imaginary correlations for 78 baselines. The resulting 1560 visibilities (representing 1.56 THz of correlation bandwidth) are digitized, accumulated
and read out by the control computer at 0.84-s intervals. Correlator offsets are eliminated by phase switching the 38 GHz LO between 0° and 180° in a Walsh sequence on
a 25.6 J.LS clock interval, correcting for the sign flip in the accumulator hardware. A
second level of Walsh switching is performed in software with a switching period equal
to the readout interval. The analog correlators, developed at Caltech (Padin et al.
2001a) for joint use with the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI), represent a major
technological achievement which gives DASI more correlation bandwidth than most
observatory-class interferometers, in a single 9U VME crate which mounts behind the
receiver aperture plate. Due to the fixed positions of the antennas on the aperture
plate, no variable length delay lines are necessary, and the short fixed distance to
the downconverter and correlator provides tremendous phase stability, with observed
instrumental phase drifts less than 10° over a period of weeks.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

2.7

Telescope Control and Data Handling

Telescope control and data readout are handled by a Motorola2 VME 68060 computer
board mounted inside the telescope, and running VXWorks 3 , a real-time operating
system. Visibility data, housekeeping data, and control commands are communicated
between the VME computer and a Sun 4 workstation in a nearby control room via fiber
optic ethernet cable. Data are stored temporarily on the Sun workstation; approximately 160 MB of data are transmitted to Chicago daily via a TDRS satellite internet
link. Telescope motion is controlled with a PMAC5 motion controller mounted next
to the VME computer which receives input from encoders on the three axes of rotation as well as motor encoders and sends control signals to Techron 6 model 7780
amplifiers. Custom software developed at Cal tech for CBI and DASI and additional
software developed at the University of Chicago are used for DASI telescope control
and data handling.

2.8

Mount

The telescope mount was designed and constructed in conjunction with Vertex/RSI 7 ,
Fig. 2.5. The telescope mount was required to meet stringent pointing and tracking
criteriaB, as well as endure the extreme polar environment, where temperatures average -30 C during the austral summer and -60 C during winter. The mount uses
a counterbalanced gear and pinion elevation drive, and box steel plate construction
2Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL 60196.
"Distributed by Wind River Systems, 500 Wind River Way, Alameda, CA 9450l.
·Sun Microsystems, Inc., 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303.
'Manufactured by Delta Tau Data Systems, 9036-T Winnetka Ave., Northridge, CA 91324-3235.
"Manufactured by Techron, a division of Crown International Inc., Elkhart, IN 46515. The
division has now been sold to AE Techron, Inc., Elkhart, IN 46516.
7Vertex/RSI, 2211 Lawson Lane, Santa Clara, CA 95054.
8The pointing error was specified as 5" for the azimuth and elevation axes and 30" for the
deck rotation axis. The tracking error was specified as 1". These values were chosen through
consideration of point source removal requirements and the angular resolution of the experiment,
including a possible 90 GHz frequency upgrade. See §5.2 for actual pointing performance.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

(LE HTlQH UI S

TH ETA AXIS

I_ _

. O.~" -

l~
"' ~

A Z I ~ UTH

.SLD L'lJ [ W -

EL - o·

Figure 2.5 Technical drawing of the DASI telescope structure. The mount is designed to endure
the extreme polar environment. The 13 receivers mount on an aperture plate which may rotate
about the pointing axis; the correlator and other back-end electronics are rigidly attached at the
rear of the receivers. A flexible fabric sleeve allows motion around the elevation access while keeping
the telescope interior at room temperature. Access to the telescope is via a ladder from the room
below.

to assure rigidity and pointing/tracking accuracy. An insulated fabric sleeve allows
motion in the elevation axis while keeping the interior of the telescope and drive
assemblies at room temperature.

2,9

Tower Infrastructure & Environmental Design

The DASI telescope was designed to mount atop a pre-existing tower structure attached to the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory (MAPO) building at the South Pole.
The tower structure consists of concentric inner and outer towers, which are individually free standing and vibration ally isolated. Great care was taken to design access

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

to the telescope in a weather-protected environment while preserving the inner tower
vibration isolat ion (Fig. 2.6).
The interior of the telescope is accessed from below via a compressor room, which
is built on the outer tower structure. The compressor room houses the 6 Helium
compressors, DC drive motor amplifiers, and other electronics. This room and the interior of the telescope are heated by t he ~ 45 kW of waste heat from t he compressors
and electronics. Temperature control is accomplished by an integrated air handling
unit which incorporates a heat exchanger to cool glycol from the liquid-cooled compressors, using an outside air intake. A small 5 kW electric heater, controlled by a
t hermostat, heats t he room when the telescope electronics are off.
The telescope steel structure is covered with insulation panels consisting of I"
thick extruded closed-cell polystyrene foam sandwiched between two 1/32" aluminum
sheets. The insulated fabric sleeve, which permits motion about the elevation axis,
consists of an outer shell of polyurethane coated fabric supplied by Uretek, Inc. 9 ,
sewn to an insulation layer and inner lining fabric made of polyester . The flexible
fabric sleeve has performed well -

our second-season winterover B. Reddall reports

that as of July 2001, mid-way through the second winter of operation, there is no sign
of cracking or fatigue in the material, although it does become stiff. The inside of the
telescope maintains a comfortable temperature of ~ 17 C during the winter while the
compressor room hovers around 10 C. There is no ice buildup on the receiver dewars
where they penetrate the telescope interior, although the interface between the dewars
and aperture plate is wet due to heating of the dewars from the telescope interior. In
the design stage, we were concerned about ice and fine snow buildup on the corrugated
horns and near the azimuth-axis brush seal, but this has not proved to be a problem
(Fig. 2.7). The apertures are covered with a 0.002" t hick Mylar window, which is
kept under positive pressure with nitrogen gas; the snow accumulation brushes off
easily. The compressor room is also under positive pressure, and constant outward
'Uretek, Inc., 30 Lenox St., New Haven, CT 06513.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

TOWER 3- D CROSS SECTIOI'i
PLYWOOD WI Tt! " LUMI~U M SKIN
II

CRATING

AZI MUTH RING
10 IN CH BL UE OOARO INSULAHON

"-,,,,,,,,,''o,

ROO'" CE ILI NG

:1-_--"" '"''''0' ROO M WAll

Figure 2.6 Preliminary design of the telescope-tower interface, very similar to the interface as
constructed. The drawings show a cross section of the DASI compressor room, the two concentric
towers , and the azimuth ring of the telescope. The compressor room is attached to the outer tower,
which is vibrationally isolated from the inner tower upon which the telescope sits, with gaps between
the two structures.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

Figure 2.7 Winter snow accumulation around the aperture plate and azimuth-axis brush seal. The
left panel shows one day of snow accumulation on the aperture plate, corrugated horns, and optical
camera. Each corrugated horn is covered with a 0.002" thick Mylar window, which is kept under
positive pressure with nitrogen gas. The snow accumulation brushes off easily. The right panel shows
the area near the azimuth-axis brush seal on the horizontal ground shield. Constant outward airflow
from positive pressure in the compressor room sublimates snow near the brush seal and azimuth
ring, preventing snow and ice accumulation.

airflow through the brush seal sublimates snow near the brush seal and azimuth ring,
preventing snow and ice accumulation (Fig. 2.7). Teflon insulated wiring is used
throughout the telescope wherever possible, since the PVC insulation typically used
becomes brittle and shatters when flexed at polar temperatures. Overall the DASI
environmental design has worked extremely well. The climate controlled telescope
interior allows for easy inspection and repair by the winterover crew, and the telescope
has not suffered a climate-related failure.

2.10

Telescope Deployment

The process of shipping and deployment was carefully planned and coordinated with
the NSF Office of Polar Programs and its antarctic logistics contractor, Antarctic
Support Associates (ASA). This collaboration resulted in a polar deployment of unprecedented speed and success. The DASI mount was delivered to Chicago by Vertex
in May 1999. Initial component assembly, wiring, and drive system installation were

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

performed in a high-bay at the University of Chicago. The telescope was moved outside to a nearby parking lot in July 1999 to test and refine pointing and tracking
capability as well as perform initial RF system integration tests. The mount was
dismantled and shipped to ASA in Port Hueneme, California, in early September. It
arrived at McMurdo Station, Antarctica in mid-October.
Deployment of the DASI telescope progressed rapidly after the opening of the
South Pole Station in late October 1999. Telescope mount sub-assemblies were called
in from McMurdo as they were needed on site. The telescope assembly was mounted
atop the pre-existing tower attached to the Martin A. Pomerantz (MAPO) building
in early December 1999, Fig. 2.8. The compressor room, constructed in the first part
of the 1999- 2000 season by ASA personnel and critical to the telescope's success in
surviving the polar winter, was carefully designed and planned in a close cooperation
between ASA engineers and DASI team members. The South Pole station provides
excellent facility support for the telescope, including a machine shop in the MAPO
building as well as engineering, construction, communications, and logistics expertise
and support.
The telescope saw first light in mid-January 2000. By the end of the season in
mid-February, the telescope was completely operational, with the entire complement
of 13 receivers, and operational correia tors in all 10 IF bands. The drive system
worked well, with the telescope under full computer control. By station closing, the
telescope had been calibrated using thermal loads (see §5.3), and initial CMB fields
and celestial calibrator sources were being observed.

2.11

Ground Shields

Reflective angled ground shields are desirable to prevent the sidelobes of the interferometer from seeing correlated thermal noise from the ground and structures
surrounding the instrument. The shield design for DASI is shown in Fig. 2.9. The

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

Figure 2.8 The DASI telescope being lifted to the tower attached to the Martin A. Pomerantz Observa.tory, 3 December 1999. The room underneath the telescope houses Helium compressors , drive

amplifiers, and an air handling unit for managing waste heat from the telescope and compressors.

horizon is obscured for every element of the array at all angles greater than the minimum observing angle of 25

The geometry of the ground shields is designed to reflect

the beam of each of the antennas to the cold ~ 4 K sky for all beam angles ::; 90 0
off of the pointing axis. Several of the ground shield panels are hinged and may be
lowered to the horizon to allow observations of planets (always at low elevation at the
South Pole), and calibration with a fixed ground transmitter. Due to construction
scheduling difficulties at the South Pole, the ground shield construction was delayed
until November 2001, after the initial season of observations. However, the stability
of the ground signal and instrument allowed us to eliminate ground contamination
by observing multiple fields at constant elevation over the same range in azimuth.
Observing strategy is discussed in Chapter 5.

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

Figure 2.9 A perspective drawing of the DASI telescope on top of its tower, showing the ground
shields.

2.12

The South Pole Site

The South Pole has been chosen as a site for several CMB anisotropy experiments
over the past decade (see, e.g., Meinhold & Lubin 1991; Tucker et al. 1993; Dragovan
et al. 1994; Platt et al. 1997; Coble et al. 1999), and has proven to be a superb site
for degree-scale measurement of CMB anisotropy. It is high (2800 m), extremely cold
and dry, and is situated on an expansive ice sheet, with the surface wind dominated
by weak katabatic airflow from higher terrain several hundred kilometers away to

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

5xlLO~-'3~~O-.OL1~~~O.~O-15~.~~~O~.O~2~~-O~.~
02~5~~~
O~.O~3~

Figure 2.10 Cumulative opacity distributions at the South Pole measured by DASI during the
period 05 May-07 November 2000. The ten curves are, from left to right, the ten RF frequency
bands centered at 26.5-35.5 GHz.

grid northeast (see discussion in King & Turner 1997). The prevailing atmospheric
opacity, as measured by DASI during its first season of observations, confirms previous
assessments of the dryness of the site (Chamberlin et al. 1997), with opacity T < 0.02
at 30 GHz nearly all of the time (see Fig. 2.10).
In addition, the stability of the atmosphere is of critical importance for degreescale CMB experiments such as DASI, since water vapor entrained in a turbulent
atmosphere acts as an additional source of experimental noise. The amplitude of
fluctuations in atmospheric emissivity has been compared with and found significantly better than the Cerro Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama desert of Chile, the
proposed site for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (Lay & Halverson 2000). In
this study, the atmospheric fluctuations at the South Pole site are found to be bimodal in nature, with extremely smooth airflow present 75% of the time during the
austral summer. Observations made by DASI during its first austral winter confirm
the superb nature of the site -

95% of the time the data show little increased noise

at even the largest angular scales due to atmospheric turbulence, Fig. 2.11. The

CHAPTER 2. DASI INSTRUMENT OVERVIEW

atmospheric conditions at the South Pole enable the DASI telescope efficiently and
consistently to collect high quality data.

20r-----,-----.------.-----.--~--r_----,__.

~15

-'"

_......... ......._ ..,-_ .. .

...

#_..-.-..~

O~----~-----L------~----~----~------~~

May 2000

Jun

Jul

Aug
Date

Sep

Oct

Nov

Figure 2.11 Visibility noise for the first season of observations, for one of the shortest baselines,
which is sensitive to large angular scales where the atmospheric fluctuations are strongest. The data
is instrument noise limited almost all of the time; only 5% of the data were edited due to weather.
The noise oscillations that are apparent starting in late September are due to solar fringing (sunrise
occurs around September 21 at the South Pole). Short baselines such as the one above were rejected
in data where the sun was above the horizon (see Chapter 5).

Chapter 3

Optics Design

3.1

Introduction

Corrugated horns were developed as well behaved feeds for reflector antennas, but
they are also used as stand-alone antennas in instruments which require an unobstructed aperture and low sidelobes. We designed a 20-cm aperture diameter lensed
corrugated horn as the antenna element for DASI. The necessary sensitivity of the
experiment, and the proximity of antenna elements (some are touching) require a
diffraction limited aperture antenna with low sidelobes and an unobstructed aperture
to reduce coupling between adjacent antenna elements. The antennas must also be
broadband, operating from 26-36 GHz, have low return loss (i.e., small reflection
coefficient), and be physically compact.
The antenna incorporates a 30 0 semi-flare angle corrugated horn with a collimating
high-density polyethylene (HDPE) lens. Broadband single-mode performance in a
wide semi-flare angle horn combined with low return loss is particularly difficult to
achieve (see, e.g., Olver & Xiang 1988). We have avoided complex ring-loaded slots in
the throat section previously described in the literature as a solution to these design
criteria (Thomas et al. 1986). Instead, we have used a narrow-angle throat section
incorporating tapered width slots (described in Zhang 1993) with a constant radiusof-curvature transition to the 30 flare section to achieve broadband performance

(> 1.4:1 single-mode bandwidth) combined with excellent return loss characteristics.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

We have made measurements of the return loss, far-field beam pattern and coupling between antenna elements for the constructed DASI horn. The measured maximum in-band return loss is -20 dB with the lens in place, and -24 dB without
lens, with typical values < -25 dB and < -30 dB for the lensed and unlensed horns,
respectively. This is considerably better performance than previously reported wideangle horns in the literature using more conventional throat designs (Olver & Xiang
1988). We find that a simple approximation of the aperture field distribution for
the wide-angle horn combined with the Fourier transform method for calculating the
far-field is adequate to accurately predict the beam pattern of both the lensed and
un lensed horn. Good isolation between adjacent coplanar horns is critical in our
application; we measure this coupling to be < -100 dB across the band.
This chapter describes the design and measurement for a wide-angle lensed corrugated horn with low return loss. In §3.2 we outline previous work on both wide-angle
corrugated horns and broadband single-moded horns with low return loss. In §3.3,
we give the design procedure of the lensed corrugated horn, and in §3.4, we show
measurement results of the constructed antenna, including return loss, beam pattern,
and coupling measurements between adjacent horns.

3.2

Review of Previous Work

3.2.1

Fundamental Principles of Corrugated Horns

An excellent review of the principles of corrugated horns is given by Zhang (1993).
For a more comprehensive discussion, the reader is referred to a book on the subject
by Clarricoats & Olver (1984). To a good approximation, a corrugated horn has an
aperture amplitude distribution of the zeroth order Bessel function, truncated at its
first zero,
(3.1)

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

where a01 = 2.405 is the first zero of the zeroth order Bessel function , Or is the
semi-flare angle of the corrugated horn, and the horn is assumed to be radiating
in the fundamental HEll hybrid mode under balanced conditions. The amplitude
distribution F(O) is on a spherical wavefront at the aperture of the horn; the radius
of curvature of the wavefront is determined by the slant length R of the horn. This
aperture distribution has the desirable characteristics that it is symmetric in the Eand H-planes, tapers smoothly to zero at the edge of the aperture, and is linearly
polarized. A more accurate expression for the aperture amplitude distribution for
horns with semi-flare angles 2: 10° is derived in Clarricoats (1969) using spherical
hybrid modes. We have calculated the maximum fractional error, out to the -20 dB
level in the aperture amplitude, between the simple expression in Eq. (3.1) and that
derived in Clarricoats (1969). We found a maximum fractional error of 0.5%, 1.9%,
4.1%, and 6.9% for semi-flare angles of 15°, 30°, 45° , and 60°, respectively. The

approximation for the aperture amplitude distribution in Eq. (3.1) is therefore very
good for horns with moderate semi-flare angles.
A sometimes confusing distinction is made in the literature between narrow and
wide flare-angle horns, although both have the aperture field described above. The
far-field beam pattern characteristics differ for the two types of horn, being determined predominantly by diffraction of the aperture amplitude distribution for narrow
flare-angle horns, and by the spherical phase front at the aperture for wide flare-angle
horns. In both regimes, the beams are circularly symmetric, linearly polarized, and
have low sidelobes due to the well tapered aperture distribution. Wide flare-angle corrugated horns are often used as feeds for reflector antennas because their beamwidth
is independent of frequency- the aperture of the horn is already in the far-field of the
beam waist, so the semi-flare angle Or determines the beamwidth and the Gaussian
beam waist is fixed at the apex of the conical flare. Because of these properties, wide
flare-angle corrugated horns are often referred to in the literature as "wide-band"

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

or "broadband" horns. In this work, however, we use the term broadband in reference to the frequency bandwidth over which a corrugated horn is single-moded and
well-behaved, regardless of its flare angle.
The propagation modes in a corrugated horn can be thought of as a superposition
of circular waveguide TE and TM modes. In smooth wall circular waveguide, the
guide wavenumber f3 = 2n: / >.g and cutoff wavenumber kc of TE and TM modes of
corresponding order are different. In corrugated waveguide, however, the boundary
conditions (or "surface impedance") at the waveguide wall are anisotropic, allowing
the cutoff wavenumbers of the corresponding TE and TM modes to converge. The
azimuthal slots are designed to have a depth d f:::< >'0/4, where >'0 is the free-space
design wavelength, so that the electrical short at the outer radius b of the slot is
transformed to an electrical open at the inner radius a (Fig. 3.1). This imposes the
boundary conditions

Hq,

(3.2)

Eq, =

(3.3)

(3.4)

(3.5)

at the corrugated waveguide inner wall, r = a.
The symmetry in the boundary conditions (and in Maxwell's equations) for the Eand H-fields produces corresponding symmetry in the E- and H- fields at the aperture.
Since the slots present an open at the inner radius a, Hq,/ Ez = 0 and no longitudinal
currents flow. This has the effect of tapering both the E- and H-fields to zero at
the waveguide wall. The resulting modes are "balanced hybrid" modes, consisting
of a superposition of TE and TM circular waveguide modes, with equal amplitudes
of the longitudinal fields, E z = ZoHz> where Zo is the impedance of free space. In
HE hybrid modes the TE and TM modes are in phase; in EH hybrid modes they

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

1--1---

Figure 3.1 Geometry of corrugated waveguide.

are 7r radians out of phase. The HE modes are the desirable modes because they
are linearly polarized; EH modes are not. Away from the design wavelength '>'0, one
circular waveguide mode dominates over the other, leading to non-zero fields at the
waveguide wall and, in the case of the HE modes, a non-zero E-field component in
the orthogonal plane or crosspolarization. The fundamental HEll mode described in
Eq. (3.1) is the one most often used in corrugated horns, but higher order modes may
be used as well. The mode launching region, or throat, of the horn must be designed
to excite desired modes and suppress undesired ones. The dispersion curves of the
first few HE and EH modes are shown in Fig. 3.2.

3.2.2

Broadband Throat Design

The throat of the corrugated horn provides the transition between the boundary
conditions of the smooth wall circular waveguide, and the anisotropic boundary conditions necessary for propagation of the desired balanced HEll mode. In order to
reduce return loss, a common practice is to taper the slot depths in the throat from
.>./2 at the first slot (presenting a short at the inner wall) to .>./4 at the output of the

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

Figure 3.2 Dispersion curves for the first few corrugated waveguide hybrid modes under the balanced hybrid condition, from Zhang (1993). The vertical axis f3/k is the ratio of guide wavenumber
to free space wavenumber, and ka is the product of the free space wavenumber and the inner diameter
of the corrugated waveguide.

throat (Fig. 3.3a). The first slot is designed to be ),,/2 at the high end of the band,
so that the slot presents a capacitive (negative) reactance throughout the band of
operation to avoid excitation of the EHll "surface wave" mode which can be excited
when the surface impedance is inductive. This type of throat design is limited at
low frequencies by increased return loss near the cutoff of the HEll mode and at
high frequencies by the introduction of undesired higher order modes, either by the
inductive reactance of the first slot (producing EH ll ) or by the changing reactance of
the slots in the tapered transition (usually exciting EH12).
One method of increasing the bandwidth of the throat, first implemented by Takeichi et al. (1971) and detailed by James & Thomas (1982), is to produce the desired
taper in the waveguide wall boundary conditions using ring-loaded slots (Fig. 3.3b)
instead of a simple taper in slot depth. This has the effect of attaining a surface
impedance at the first slot that is small and capacitive over a much broader range of
frequencies. Ring-loaded slots are difficult to machine, however, making the method
impractical for many applications.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

Figure 3.3 Cross sections of three throat types from the literature, which perform the mode conversion between smooth-walled circular waveguide and corrugated waveguide: a) mode conversion
employing a taper from >./2 to >./4 corrugation depth with constant slot width, b) mode conversion
using ring loaded slots, c) similar to a), but also employing a taper in slot width.

Another method of increasing the bandwidth, detailed by Zhang (1993) and depicted in an earlier paper by Goldsmith (1982), is to taper the width as well as the
depth of the slots (Fig. 3.3c). In the surface impedance approximation, where the
pitch p « ),/2, the effective impedance of the waveguide wall is approximately
Z. = jX, "" jZo tan(,8cyl d)

(~) ,

(3.6)

where s is the slot width of the corrugations and ,8cyl is the wavenumber in the cylindrical slot (not to be confused with the guide wavenumber ,8). The narrow slot widths
at the input of the throat have the effect of reducing the frequency dependence of the
impedance of the narrow ),/2 slots, keeping the reactance small and capacitive over a
broader range of frequencies. Zhang also argues that the increased distance between
the slots in this design diminishes interaction between adjacent slots, improving the

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

validity of the surface impedance model above.
Zhang has successfully implemented the above throat design for a 12° semi-flare
angle horn , measuring a return loss < -30 dB over a bandwidth ratio of 1.4: 1. However, she also models return loss for wider flare angles by treating each individual
slot and ridge as a section of circular waveguide, and cascading the individual scattering matrices (so-called modal matching) to estimate the overall return loss of the
horn. She finds that the discontinuity in the flare angle at the output of the horn
causes high return loss: -14.2 dB for a 21° semi-flare angle horn and -1.4 dB for a
25° semi-flare angle horn. One may doubt the accuracy of the -1.4 dB figure since
even a simple open ended waveguide with the dimensions of the output of the throat
has substantially lower return loss; nevertheless, one is cautioned by these numbers
against implementing Zhang's design directly in a wide flare-angle horn.

3.2.3

Return Loss in Wide Flare-Angle Horns

Wide flare-angle horns (with semi-flare angle Of ~ 20°) are difficult to design for
broadband single-mode performance and low return loss because the rapidly increasing inner diameter in the flare gives rise to an impedance mismatch, and may excite
undesired higher order modes.

Olver & Xiang (1988) have analyzed three types

of throat for wide angle corrugated horns using spherical modal matching. They
conclude that the throat that yields the best compromise between return loss and
generation of higher order modes consists of a short section of smooth wall conical
waveguide preceding the first >./4 slot. However, for a 30° semi-flare angle horn, they
report a theoretical and measured return loss of -14 dB and -12 dB, respectively,
at the low-frequency end of the band, 10% below the design frequency. In an earlier
paper, Thomas (1978) measured a return loss of -16 dB for a 45° semi-flare angle
horn at the low-frequency end of the band. This was improved to -19 dB by tapering
the depth of the slots in the throat from ).H/2 (where ).H is the wavelength at the
high frequency limit fH) to ).0/4. Olver & Xiang modeled this type of throat as well,

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

but concluded that it would result in significant generation of higher order modes.

Thomas et al. (1986) have successfully implemented a broadband wide flare-angle
horn design using ring-loaded slots in the throat and a constant radius-of-curvature
transition from the narrow flare angle in the throat to the wide flare angle at the
output flare. They report a measured return loss < -30 dB over a bandwidth ratio

> 1.7:1. While we wish to avoid the complication of ring-loaded slots in the present
design, we have incorporated Thomas, James & Greene's criteria for a constant radiusof-curvature throat-flare transition section into our wide flare-angle horn design to
provide low return loss over a broader frequency range than that achieved with the
other wide flare-angle corrugated horn designs above.

3.2.4

Lensed Corrugated Horns

Dielectric lenses designed using geometric optics have been successfully implemented
to change the phase front curvature at the mouth of a wide flare-angle corrugated
horn (see, e.g. , Padman 1978; Kildal et al. 1984). Clarricoats & Saha (1969) have
investigated two types of simple lenses (where one surface is the refracting surface
and the other surface is matched to the phase front of the beam) to collimate the
phase front of the corrugated horn. One of these lenses, the meniscus simple lens, is
shown in Fig. 3.4. The refracting surface is designed using Fermat's principle. The
lens, which is used in the present design, has a spherical rear surface and a front
surface described by

p(O) = f (n - 1) ,
n - cosO

(3.7)

where n is the index ofrefraction of the dielectric, and the other variables are depicted
in Fig. 3.4. The valid range of semi-flare angles in Eq. (3.7) is Of :s: cos- 1 (1/n).
The lens also has the effect of redistributing the power in the aperture plane,
sin 0 dO
r dr'

---

(3.8)

where Fap(r) is the lens-modified aperture field as a function of radius, and Fcorr(O)

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

1 - - - - - - f - -- --I

Figure 3.4 Geometry of a meniscus lens.

is the field amplitude of the unlensed corrugated horn as a function of angle [see
Eq. (3.1)]. For the meniscus lens described above, power is redistributed toward the
edge of the aperture. The modified aperture field distribution is then

(ncosO - 1)3
J2(n - 1)2(n - cos 0) '
where

O()=

-1

cos

2 2
(r n+ f (n-1)JJ2(n-l)2+(I-n )r )
J2(n _ 1)2 + r2

(3.9)

(3.10)

The resulting aperture efficiency is given by (Collin 1985)

_ 1 IjdxF(x)1
'T/a- A p j dx IF(x)1 2 '

(3.11)

where Ap = 'ff D2 / 4 is the physical aperture area, and the integrals are over the
two-dimensional aperture plane. This lens has the effect of increasing the aperture
efficiency above that of an unlensed diffraction limited corrugated horn. Another useful quantity in radio astronomy is the antenna gain expressed as antenna temperature

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

per unit unpolarized point source flux density. This gain, expressed in units of K/ Jy,
is given by
(3.12)
where kB is Boltzmann's constant. The factor of 1/2 is due to the assumption that
the antenna is assumed to be sensitive to only a single polarization mode. For a given
physical area A p , the gain G is proportional to the aperture efficiency 1]•.
To avoid reflections from the surfaces of the lens, the lens surface may be drilled
or grooved to simulate a A/4 anti-reflecting coating. We have chosen to machine
rectangular profile concentric grooves to accomplish this, after Morita & Cohn (1956).

3.3

Design of the DASI Lensed Corrugated Horn

The DASI interferometer requires physically compact, diffraction limited antennas
with low sidelobes and unobstructed apertures to reduce coupling between adjacent
antenna elements, some of which are touching. Because of the high sensitivity of the
experiment, we desire an antenna with a return loss < -20 dB and which contributes

:s 3- 4 K to the overall system temperature. With the optics at an ambient temperature of ~ 230 K (the mean temperature at the South Pole where DASI is deployed),
this translates into a desired attenuation in the antenna of less than 0.07 dB.
To meet these requirements, we have designed a lensed corrugated horn antenna
consisting of a 30° semi-flare angle corrugated horn, with a meniscus high-density
polyethylene (HDPE) lens at the 20-cm diameter aperture of the horn to collimate
the beam, producing a 3~4 FWHM beam at the design frequency of 30 GHz. An
exploded view of the DASI lensed corrugated horn is shown in Fig. 3.5. The DASI
lensed corrugated horn consists of four separate parts: the throat section, flare section,
lens, and shroud. The entire length of the lensed horn antenna is only 33.6 cm. We
have achieved low return loss « -20 dB at the low end of the band) in a moderately
broadband horn (1.4:1) by combining a tapered width slot design in the throat with

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

Figure 3.5 An exploded view of the DAS! lensed corrugated horn.

a constant radius-of-curvature throat-flare transition. The lens is enshrouded by a
corrugated cylindrical shroud to reduce coupling between antennas while avoiding a
significant alteration of the beam.

3.3.1

Design of the Wide-Angle Horn

The DASI horn throat consists of two regions, a narrow-angle mode-converter section
with tapered-width slots, and a throat-flare transition section where the narrow flare
angle of the mode-converter section is converted to the output flare angle Or with a
constant radius of curvature. Below, we give specific design criteria and parameters
for the throat shown in Fig. 3.6.

Aperture Diameter D and Semi-flare Angle Of
We chose an aperture diameter D = 20 cm to be as large as possible given the
minimum antenna separation of ~ 25 cm, in order to maximize the filling factor of
the aperture plane. The horn semi-flare angle Of = 30° was chosen as a compromise
between our desire for compactness, and the requirements of low return loss and a
well behaved beam over the band.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

1aD

L+JLJUH-jUI.J

t rlnr-'n,.,'.,~

Slot# 12 ... n ..

Figure 3.6 Geometry of the DASI corrugated horn throat.

Design Frequency fo
The design frequency fo = C/ AD was chosen to minimize crosspolarization at the edges
of the band, a concern since we observe circular polarization and desire to minimize
susceptibility to linearly polarized foregrounds l . The crosspolarization is primarily
due to imbalance in the HEll mode, I # 1, where I is the hybrid factor (see Zhang
(1993); Clarricoats & Olver (1984) for a discussion of the hybrid factor and Clarricoats
& Olver (1984) for details of crosspolar radiation characteristics). An expression for

the peak crosspolarization is
P cr = 20 log (0. 26

1~ ~ ~ I) .

(3.13)

In general, the hybrid factor I is derived by numerically solving a transcendental
equation. For ka » 1, I can be approximated by

"" 1 _ (k c a)2 Zo

2ka X,

(3.14)

1 We are observing CMB polarization during the 2001 season; for these measurements, low crosspolarization is critical in minimizing response to unpolarized CMB radiation.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

1 _ (k ea)2 cot(kd)

2ka

(l?) ,

(3.15)

where kea = 1.84 of the HE11 balanced hybrid mode can be used instead of that
of the imbalanced hybrid mode, with an error of a few dB. The design frequency
that minimizes the peak crosspolarization at the edges of the band is fo = 30 GHz,
yielding an estimated -55 to -60 dB peak crosspolarization at the edges of the band.
This should be taken as a lower estimate, as crosspolarization due to introduction of
higher order modes may dominate.

Slot Geometry in the Flare
The pitch in the flare section Pf must be sufficiently fine that only the lowest order TM
mode propagates in the slot, Sf < A/2, and that the surface impedance model is well
approximated (pf «A). Using modal matching simulations, Zhang establishes the
criterion that Pr / A < 0.43 at the high end of the band, to avoid generation of higher
order modes. We have chosen prj AL = 0.225, where AL = c/!L is the wavelength
at the low-frequency limit. This pitch that is fine enough to make the radius in the
throat-flare transition well defined in order to reduce the return loss. A wide range
of ridge-width to slot-width ratios may be successfully used; we used tr/ Sf = 0.5.
The slot depth in the flare, dr, is chosen to give an effective wall impedance near
infinity at the design frequency fo. The slot depth df is nearly Ao/4, but differs
slightly from this value for two reasons. First, (Jeyl < k for ka ~ 1; Fig. 3.7 shows this
effect as a function of ka, calculated using the TMI cylindrical slot mode. Second,
interactions between the slots alter the effective impedance. In order to derive the
optimal value of dr, space harmonic analysis must be used. Design graphs for slot
depth corrections, given the aperture normalized aperture diameter D / AO, normalized
slot width sri AO and ridge-width to slot-width ratio tr/ Sr are given in Clarricoats &
Olver (1984). For D/Ao 2: 6 and tr/sr > 0.5, negligible correction from the nominal

Ao/4 depth is needed. For our design, dr/ AO = 0.26.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

0.6 ,--~-~--~-~--~-~--~,

0.55
0.5

~0.45
" 0.4

]0.35
CIl

- -

Short
Open

~-----------------------i
,,
,,

0.3
--- - -------- -- --- - ------

0.25
0.2

10
Slot Inner Radius, ka

Figure 3.7 Cylindrical slot depth necessary for presenting an open or short at the inner radius a,
caIculated using the TM, cylindrical slot mode. The impedance calculation neglects interactions
between slots, which are significant in the fiare section where the ridge-width to slot-width ratio is
near unity (tf/sf ~ 1). However, this design graph is adequate for the first slot in the throat where
ttl s, » 1.

Throat-flare Transition Design
The throat-flare transition was designed using criteria from Thomas et al. (1986) .
Specifically:
• The length of the transition, It" must be greater than one wavelength, to reduce
return loss.
• The radius of curvature, Rt" must be constant, preferably with constant slot
depth , to avoid excitation of ERIn modes.
• A change in flare angle must be avoided at a large waveguide radius, since higher
order REIn modes are excited by a change in horn curvature.
These criteria impose the usual compromise between decreasing return loss with a
longer, more gentle transition, and generating higher order modes if the output of the

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

transition is too large. We restricted the transition length, therefore, to be exactly
one wavelength at the low end of the band,
(3.16)
The radius of curvature of the transition is then

Rt, =

It,

sin( Ih)

(3.17)

The outer slot radius bM at the output of the transition must be kept in mind when
specifying the initial slot radius in the throat, b1 , such that bM is near or below the

HE12 cutoff radius, kb = 7.0155 in the balanced hybrid condition. The outer slot
radius bM at the output of the transition is given by
(3.18)
where bN is the outer slot radius at the input of the transition, and t:,(J is the change
in semi-flare angle between the input and output of the transition. In our case, bn is
constant for n = 1,2, ... , N so the flare angle at the input is zero, and t:,(J = (Jf. In our
design, kHb M = 8.088. The slot width s, pitch p and slot depth d in the throat-flare
transition are constant and equal to their values in the flare section.
It is not critical that the output of the transition be below the HE12 cutoff. Thomas

et al. (1986) measured deviation from the expected beam amplitude at an angle of 30°
for their 30° semi-flare angle horn, which places limits on the level of contamination
of HE12 mode. They found a deviation less than 2 dB, even though the input of their
transition was above HE12 cutoff at the high end of the band.

Throat Input Radius
The throat input radius, ao , was chosen as a compromise between the desire to suppress the generation of unwanted higher order modes in the throat and throat-flare
transition, and the desire for low return loss at the low end of the band. A rough

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

estimate of the return loss can be achieved by considering the reflection at the junction between circular waveguide and corrugated cylindrical waveguide of the same
diameter and slot geometry of that of the initial slot. The return loss can then be
estimated by the examining the propagation constants in the two waveguides which
have different frequency dependence. The return loss, S11, is given by Clarricoats &
Olver (1984),
(3.19)
where f31 and f32 are the propagation constants in the two waveguides. Propagation
constant curves for corrugated slot geometry with s = 0.1A and t = 0.05A, derived
using space harmonics analysis, are given in Clarricoats & Olver (1984). The large
ridge-width to slot-width ratio, tt/SI, of our throat design improves the return loss
by lessening the frequency dependence of wall impedance. A better estimate of the
return loss due to the first slot (sec Fig. 3.8) assumes a wall impedance given by
Eq. (3.6); the propagation constant f3 in the corrugated waveguide is then calculated
using the characteristic equation for the surface impedance model given in Clarricoats
& Olver (1984). This estimate does not take into the account reflect ions off of other

discontinuities in the throat, such as the throat-flare transition. A more accurate estimation of the return loss in the horn could be done using modal matching techniques,
which we have not performed. We chose a throat input radius, koao = 2.515.

Throat Input Slot Geometry
The initial slot depth was chosen so that the wall impedance is zero at the highfrequency edge of the band, with a resulting negative wall reactance throughout
the band to avoid the generation of the EHu mode. Using the surface impedance
model for the wall impedance, Eq. (3.6), is justified when the initial ridge-width to
slot-width ratio is large, ttl SI » 1, since there is minimal interaction between slots
(Zhang 1993). Using cylindrical slot mode calculations (Fig. 3.7), the desired slot
depth to produce a short at AH = c/ JH is d 1 = 0.509AH = 0.424 em for the above

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

-40 r-.----r---.----r---.----.---.----r---~,

-60

-80

-100

i>: -120

-140

-160 "----::~_____::'_::______::'_::_-_:_::_-_:_::_--:"-:--':'-:-'--:!-::---:-::--'
II
38

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 3.8 The estimated return loss for the DASI throat design due to the impedance discontinuity
of the first slot, Eq. (3.19). This simple estimate of the return loss is a lower limit, since the return
loss is dominated by other discontinuities, such as the throat-flare transition.

input radius. The initial ridge-width to slot-width ratio td 81 should be large enough
to keep the return loss low over a wide frequency range, in addition to satisfying the
above criterion. We chose td 81 = 6.63, close to Zhang's tested throat design.
The throat section of the horn was constructed by electroforming over a mandrel.
We set the aspect ratio of the first slot to 10:1 (dd 81 = 10) to ensure proper etching of
the mandrel. The pitch of the first slot is then PI = 0.320 cm, so that pd AH = 0.384,
larger than the pitch in the flare section. Over the length of the throat , lth, the
inner radius an, the slot width 8 n , and the pitch Pn are linearly tapered from their
initial values to their final values at the input of the throat-flare transition. Following
Zhang, we made the length of the throat several wavelengths long, lth/ Ao = 3.21,
to sufficiently attenuate evanescent modes and allow for a gradual taper of the slot
parameters.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

DASI lensed hom
Unlenscd diffraction limited hom

-10

-20

.€! 0.8

- 30

~O.6

E-40

L,o ' , ' ,, ,,
of
, ,
- 60 ,

to.
0.2

, "I

,,
-70

-80

-90

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

DASI lensed hom

- - Unlcnsed diffraction limiled hom

LL_~"~-_~10~~_'~~0~--7,--~,O--~"~

Normaliud rJdius

Angle (degrees)

Figure 3.9 Comparison of the theoretical aperture E-field distribution and beam patterns for the
DASI lensed horn and an equivalent unlensed diffraction limited horn (Le., with equivalent aperture
diameter and a semi-flare angle Br «30°). The meniscus lens redistributes the field toward the
edge of the horn, increasing the aperture efficiency to 84% compared to 69% for the unlensed horn.
The left panel shows the aperture field distribution for the two types of horn; the right panel shows
the central portion of the resulting beam patterns, for horns with a 20-cm aperture diameter at a
frequency of 30 GHz.

3.3.2

Design of the DASI Horn Lens and Shroud

For the DASI horn lens, we chose a meniscus lens with a refracting front surface,
and non-refracting spherical rear surface to match the spherical wavefront at the
aperture of the corrugated horn, as described in §3.2.4.

In an interferometer, it

is advantageous to have antennas with high aperture efficiency 'I).. Antennas with
high aperture efficiency enable the interferometer to more efficiently sample the uv plane, increasing sensitivity, and enabling multiple fields to be more efficiently

linked together to increase resolution in the u-v plane (White et al. 1999a). We
therefore chose a meniscus lens in order to increase the aperture efficiency. The
aperture efficiency of the DASI lensed horn is 84% at 30 GHz, compared to 69% for
an unlensed zero flare-angle horn with the same aperture diameter. A plot of the
aperture field distribution and corresponding far-field patterns for the two apertures
are shown in Fig. 3.9.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

High-density polyethylene (HDPE) was selected as t he lens material because of its
low loss tangent at cm wavelengths and machinability. Published optical constants
at cm and mm wavelengths vary in the literature, with one source reporting an index
of refraction nd = 1.524 and a loss tangent tan J = 660 X 10- 6 rad at 180 GHz
(Birch et al. 1981), and another reporting nd = 1.5218 and tan J = 134 X 10- 6 rad at
35 GHz (Degenford & Coleman 1966). We measured tan J ~ 160 X 10- 6 rad in the

range 22- 40 G Hz on sample material from the lens stock. We chose 4" slab stock 2
to ensure uniformity, rather than rod stock, in which the dielectric constant can have
radial variation (Plambeck 1999). The maximum t hickness of the lens t is 6.200 cm;
the lens therefore contributes a noise temperature of TN ~ 2.2 K at 30 GHz and
a physical temperature of 230 K , the mean ambient temperature at the South Pole
where the instrument is deployed. We used a slightly increased index of refraction
in the lens design, nd = 1.527, taking into account the increase in HDPE density at
polar ambient temperatures.
The lens is grooved with concentric rectangular cross-section grooves to act as
a >'14 ant i-reflection coating. The design frequency of the anti-reflection coating is
far = 31 GHz, in the center of t he band. The groove parameters are (using t he same
nomenclature as for the corrugated waveguide) Sar = 0.119 cm, Par = 0.198 cm, and
dar = 0.196 cm. Although the grooves are machined on a lathe and are parallel to
the axis of rotation of the lens, the groove depth dac is t he component of the depth
normal to the surface of the lens, and is equal to >'14 at the design frequency in a
medium that has an index of refraction at the geometric mean of the dielectric and
air, nar = jndnair' Table 3.1 summarizes the design parameters for the DASI lensed
horn.
'Supplied by Accurate Plastics, Inc., 18 Morris Place, Yonkers, NY 10705.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

Horn Section
General

Parameter Description
Low-frequency Limit

!L
fH
fo

High-frequency Limit

Design :Frequency
Aperture Diameter
Semi-flare Angle
Pitch

Flare

Throat-flare
Transition

=XH= :,
=t;=~

30 GHz
20 em
30°
0.195 em
0.130 em

{an

;D-d)

0.260 em
1.154 em
2.308 em
0.195 em
0.130 em

R"
M- N
Pt<
St<

dt<

( = b. _ (a. - : .- , ))

Input Waveguide Radius
Initial Slot Pitch
Initial Slot Width
Initial Slot Depth
Initial Slot Outer Radius
Output Slot Pitch
Output Slot Width
Output Slot Depth
Output Slot Outer Radius
Type
Dielectric Material
Design Temperature
Design Index of refraction (at T d )
Loss Tangent
Axial Thickness
Aperture Efficiency
Antenna Gain

0.260 em
1.072 em
3.605 em
14
0.400 em
0.320 em
0.042 em
0.422 em
0.824 em

Length
Number of Slots

Anti-reflection
Grooves

26 GHz
36 GHz

It<

Pitch

Lens

2'11"

Or
Pr
sr

Slot Width

Throat

Length
Radius
Number of Slots

Mean Slot Depth
Outer slot radius at output

- XL -

Slot Width

Mean Slot Depth

Value

Parameter Symbol

Ith

ao
p,
S,

( = b, - at)

b,
PN
'N
dN ( = bN - aN)
bN

Design Frequency
Groove Pitch
Groove Width
Groove Depth

PI
'I

0.260 em
0.824 em
Simple Meniscus
High-density Polyethylene
273 K
1.527
160 x 10- 6 rad
6.200 em
84%
9.5 x 10- 6 K(Jy

fa<
Pa<
Sa<
da<

31 GHz
0.198 em
0.119 em
0.196 em

Td
nd

tan 0
~.

Table 3.1 DASI lensed corrugated horn parameters.

3.4

Measurement Results

3.4.1

Return Loss Measurements

The measured return loss for the DASI horn, shown III the left plot of Fig. 3.10, is

< - 24 dB across the 26-36 GHz band for the unlensed horn, and < -20 dB for
the horn with lens and shroud in place. The typical return loss is < -30 dB and

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

-10
hom alone

hom, lent. and shroud

-10

- 2Q
-JQ

~-.j()

~ -30
,;!

£-50

-00
-50

-70

~~2~2~'--~U--~28~~30'-~32'-~~~~376~3~8~'·0
r'l'Cqucncy (GHz)

- SO

-I

-0.5

0.5

Time (ns)

I.S

2.5

Figure 3.10 The measured return loss for the DASI lensed corrugated horn. The left plot shows
the return loss vs. frequency for the horn without the lens or shroud in place (solid line) and with
the lens and shroud (dashed line). The right plot shows the return loss for the lensed horn in
the time domain. Peaks in the power at 0 ns, 0.8 ns, and 2.0 ns correspond to the input to the
circular-to-rectangular waveguide transition, the input to the throat-flare transition, and the rear
spherical surface of the lens, respectively.

< -25 dB for the unlensed and lensed horn, respectively. The return loss for the
un lensed horn exhibits two resonant spikes at 26.2 GHz and 29.2 GHz. These are
due to an RF choke and o-ring flange at the input to the horn, designed electrically
to accommodate a Mylar vacuum window (with a dielectric constant E, = 3.0). The
spikes disappear when the vacuum window is in place. The return loss in the lensed
horn is dominated by an impedance discontinuity at the lens, and reaches its minimum
near the design frequency of the anti-reflection grooves, fa< = 31 G Hz.
Fourier transforming the return loss to the time domain can be used to discriminate between the contributions from the various regions of the lensed horn.

minimize confusion in the interpretation of the time domain data due to dispersion
from frequencies near cutoff in the narrow region of the throat, we only Fourier transformed the return loss for frequencies well above cutoff, 31-40 G Hz. The resulting
time domain plot, on the right side of Fig. 3.10, reveals peaks in power at times of 0 ns,
0.8 ns, and 2.0 ns. When the group velocity delay due to the circular-to-rectangular

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

waveguide transition and narrow region of the throat is taken into account, these
times correspond to round-trip distances to the input of the circular-to-rectangular
waveguide transition, the input of the throat-flare transition, and the rear spherical
surface of the lens, respectively. There is no apparent signature due to reflection from
the initial slot in the throat. For comparison, the return loss was measured for a go
semi-flare angle corrugated horn with conventional tapered slot throat geometry, as in
Fig. 3.3a. In the time domain, the return loss was dominated by a peak corresponding
to the position of the first >./2 slot.
The time domain plot, as mentioned above, clearly shows that the amplitude
oscillations of the lensed horn return loss in the frequency domain are due to reflections between the impedance discontinuities in the circular-to-rectangular waveguide
transi tion and lens. When the response from the circular-to-rectangular waveguide
transition is gated out, these oscillations in return loss are reduced, approaching the
mean value between peaks. When the unlensed return loss data are gated in a similar manner, the return loss is reduced to < -35 dB from 31- 40 GHz, indicating
that the circular-to-rectangular waveguide transition dominates the return loss in the
upper half of the band. We chose a commercially available circular-to-rectangular
waveguide transition, 3.8 cm in length with an adiabatic taper; the return loss could
be improved by changing the transition to incorporate a longer adiabatic taper or a
multiple-stepped transition.

3.4.2

Beam Measurements

We measured beam patterns for both the unlensed corrugated horn and the horn with
lens and shroud in place. Measurements for both configurations were done outside
on a rooftop, sweeping the horn under test toward the zenith to minimize multi path
signals. For the unlensed horn, we used a frequency synthesizer as a transmitter,
and a spectrum analyzer as a receiver. The beam pattern was measured at 26 GHz,
30 GHz and 36 GHz in both the E- and H-planes. The measured and theoretical

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

E-piane measured

- - H-plane measured
- . - E-plane theory
H-plane theory

-10

-20

~-30

"' ~' -':

' .,

" '"

-40

'" , ..
" .....

" ,

' .:",'"

',- ,

-.'

-50

'.'

,~-" \

-60

30
40
Angle (degrees)

Figure 3.11 The measured and theoretical beam patterns for the DASI corrugated horn, without
lens and shroud, at f = 30 GHz. The theoretical beam patterns were calculated using the Fourier
transform method.

beam patterns at 30 G Hz for the un lensed horn are shown in Fig. 3.1I.
The theoretical beam pattern for the unlensed horn was calculated by taking the
Fourier transform of the transverse component of the field in Eq. (3.1) over the flat
aperture plane, taking into account the phase gradient and amplitude falloff as the
radial distance to the horn apex increases toward the edge of the aperture. The
theoretical E-plane beam pattern is modulated by an additional factor of cos 2 (BB)
in power, where BB is the angle off of the optical axis, due to the vector nature of
the fields (Collin 1985). The measured and theoretical beam patterns agree well out
to BB ~ 50°. There is little evidence for higher order modes, which would cause a
deviation in the measured beam away from that predicted by theory.
The beam pattern of the lensed horn was measured using a frequency synthesizer
as a transmitter, and a vector network analyzer as a tuned receiver. A splitter and

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

E-pllllle measured

H-plane ulCasumi

E-plllUC theory

H-plane: theory

-80

-HIO

- 10

-100

20
30
Angle (degrees)

- 10

20
30
Angle (dciftCsj

Figure 3.12 The measured and theoretical beam patterns for the DASI corrugated horn, with lens
and shroud in place, at f = 30 GRz. The theoretical beam patterns were calculated using the
Fourier transform method.

coaxial cable were used to route half of the transmitter signal to the second port of the
network analyzer, so that both the amplitude and phase of the signal received by the
horn could be measured at 801 points across the band. With this phase information,
we gated the signal in the time domain, which reduced the response to multipath
signals, and allowed us to probe deep into the sidelobe pattern.
The beam pattern of the lensed horn at 30 GHz, Figs. 3.12 & 3.13, demonstrates
that the lensed corrugated horn behaves as predicted, with symmetric E- and Hplane beam patterns and evenly tapered sidelobes. The measured beam patterns
generally agree with the predicted pattern, again calculated using the Fourier transform method. The first few sidelobes, shown clearly in Fig. 3.13, are a few dB higher
than predicted across the band. This may be due to truncation of the beam by the
shroud, by a breakdown of the J o approximation for the aperture distribution of the
unlensed horn, or by a breakdown in the ray-tracing approximation for the power distribution near the edge of the lens. The lens surface contour and index of refraction
are designed for a lower ambient temperature (273 K) than that at which the beam
was measured. However, this should have only a small effect on the beam pattern.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

10,---------.---------.----------.---------,
E-plane measured
H-plane measured

Theory

- 10

~-20 ~\\/

\" .

,1 I

~-30

,£

." ' . \

- I
I I

- 40

I-

'i\

I-

-50
-60

-5

Angle (degrees)

Figure 3.13 DASI lensed horn beam pattern at f = 30 GRz, enlarged to show the first few
sidelobes. Only one theoretical beam pattern is shown, as E- and R-plane theoretical patterns are
indistinguishable at small angles.
Full width half pover (FWHP)
Freq.
26 GHz
30 GHz

36 GHz

E-plane
measured
4.10
3.40
2.8 0

First sidelobe peak response

E-plane
theory

H-plane
measured

H-plane
theory

E-plane
measured

E-plane
theory

4.0 0
3.4 0
2.9 0

3.7 0
3.4 0
2.8 0

4.0 0
3.4 0
2.9 0

-19.8 dB

-21.6 dB

-19.6 dB

-21.6 dB
-21.6 dB

-19.1 dB

H-plane
measured
-20.6 dB

H-plane
-21.6 dB

-18.6 dB

-21.6 dB

-17.1 dE

-21.6 dB

theory

Table 3.2 DASI lensed corrugated horn beam parameters.

The lensed horn behaves well throughout the 26- 36 GHz band (Table 3.2), but with
generally higher first sidelobes at the high end of the band, most likely due to mode
imbalance away from the design frequency.

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

3.4.3

Coupling Measurements

In the DASI interferometer, the High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) based
amplifiers in each receiver emit correlated noise from the input and output ports
which, when coupled to an adjacent antenna, produce a signal at the correlator output
on the order of (at most) ~Teo, in units of antenna temperature, where 1821 1
is the amplitude ratio of the coupling between antennas and Teo, is the correlated
noise component from the HEMT amplifiers (see detailed discussion in Padin et al.
2000). Given an expected CMB sky signal of ~ 10- 5 K (again in units of antenna
temperature) and a noise temperature for the HEMT amplifiers THEMT ~ 10 K, we
conservatively require a coupling « -120 dB in order to make the coupling signal
sub dominant to the CMB sky signal.
We measured the coupling between adjacent coplanar antennas using a network
analyzer and Ka-band amplifiers, gating the data in the time domain to remove coupling due to multipath signals in the room. The results were confirmed at a few
discreet frequencies using a frequency synthesizer and detector outdoors with the
horns pointed at the sky, increasing our confidence in the network analyzer measurement method. The time domain data and gate used for the measurements are
shown in Fig. 3.14. The direct path coupling signal lies within the gate; the large
peak outside the gate at 17 ns is a signal reflected from a wall of microwave absorber
170 em in front of the apertures (which we verified by changing the distance to the
absorber). The observed coupling signal occurs on longer time scales than expected
from the ~ 100 cm path length of the combined horn lengths and separation distance
between the centers of the apertures. This may be due to coupling between more
dispersive higher order modes in the near-field geometry.
The coupling between adjacent horns shows complex structure in the frequency
domain (Fig. 3.15). This has been previously observed in mutual coupling within circular waveguide arrays, and attributed to diffraction in the flange geometry (Bailey
1974). The peaks in the E- and H-plane coupling are at similar levels. The coupling

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

-20
E-plane
H-plane

-30
- 40

~-50

gate

, ,,

~-60

,_."

''''~-i

-70

-80
-90

,. ,

. --...-.I ~' - ' -""

Time (ns)

Figure 3.14 Time domain gate used for coupling measurements. The signal within the gate is
direct path coupling between the horn apertures. The multipath signal at 17 ns is due to microwave
absorber placed 170 em in front of the apertures and is gated out. The coupling signals shown are
for coplanar apertures, with parallel polarization, aligned in the E- and H-planes. The horn edge
separation is zero; the aperture edge separation is 5.4 em due to the width of the horn flanges. The
time domain signals have been smoothed for clarity.

decreases monotonically with increased horn separation, decreasing by ~ 20 dB in
both the E- and H-planes from zero horn edge separation to a separation of 75 cm.
With zero horn edge separation, the coupling peaks near -100 dB in both the Eand H-plane orientations. This does not take into account additional isolation provided by the decorrelation that the propagation delay will cause over the 1 GHz wide
DASI correlation channel widths. The unwanted correlated noise between receivers
could still dominate the desired CMB signal with -100 dB coupling between horns,
we therefore placed cooled waveguide isolators in front of the HEMT amplifiers to
further reduce the potential coupling of correlated noise power (see Chapter 4). Additionally, our observing strategy incorporates observations of multiple fields on the sky

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

-so

II-plane hom edge separation

E- plilnc hom cdlll: Kpar.ltion

- 90

---

-90

Delli
IS em

---

-HlO

Oem

IS em

-100

,,
,, ,
,, \

-140

-ISO

-100

30
32
Frequency (GHl)

J.I

-100

•,,
,,

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 3.15 Measured coupling between adjacent horns, with aperture separation in the E-plane

(left plot) and H-plane (right plot). The aperture edge separation is 5.4 em greater than the horn
edge separation due to the width of the horn flanges.

in the same instrument configuration; this allows us to remove contaminating signals,
such as correlated noise due to coupling between antennas, during data analysis (see
Chapters 5, 6, and 7).

3.5

Summary

We have designed a wide flare-angle lensed horn with low return loss as the antenna
element for the DASI experiment. The combination of a wide flare-angle horn and
low return loss, necessary for the DASI experiment, presents a design challenge. In
our design, we have employed a narrow throat section with tapered-width slots, and
a constant radius-of-curvature throat-flare transition to a 30° semi-flare angle at the
output. The resulting return loss characteristics are excellent: we measured a return
loss < -24 dB for the horn without lens across the 26-36 GHz band, and < -20 dB
with the lens in place, with typical values < -30 dB and < -25 dB for the unlensed
and lensed horn, respectively.

Unlike horns with fixed-width slots in the throat,

the DASI horn return loss is not dominated by reflections from the first slot in the

CHAPTER 3. OPTICS DESIGN

throat. Likewise, the far-field beam pattern is well behaved, little evidence of higher
order mode contamination in the band. We found that the assumption of a simple

Jo(Ciol(}/(}r) aperture distribution and the Fourier transform method for calculating
the far-field were adequate to accurately model the beam patterns of both the lensed
and unlensed horns. The mutual coupling between adjacent coplanar horns was measured to be < -100 dB across the band. Although small, fluctuations in the CMB
are smaller yet, prompting us to insert waveguide isolators in front of the HEMT
amplifiers to reduce potential coupling of correlated HEMT noise between adjacent
horns.

Chapter 4

Receivers

4.1

Introduction

The receivers are the so-called front end of the interferometer. Their job is to collect the signal via the antenna, amplify the signal, and downconvert it to a lower
frequency which can be transmitted with less loss and subsequently processed in the
back end with commercially available components. The receiver is the first compo-

nent in the signal chain, and is the source of almost all of the system noise - careful
receiver design is therefore critical in an instrument capable of achieving the sensitivity required to measure anisotropy in the CMB. To this end, the Ka-band operating
frequency (26-36 GHz) was chosen because of the availability of low-noise High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) amplifiers (Pospieszalski 1993; Pospieszalski et al.
1994), as well as low atmospheric emissivity and the expected low level of Galactic
foreground emission at these frequencies. Prototype receivers were built and tested
at the University of Chicago during the period 1996- 1998, with production assembly
commencing during 1999 and finished at the South Pole in January 2000.

4.2

RF Design

The DASI receivers consist of a 20-cm aperture-diameter lensed corrugated horn
(described in Chapter 3), coupled to a cooled low-noise HEMT amplifier in Ka-band

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

(see schematic, Fig. 4.1, and layout, Fig. 4.2). A 38 GHz local oscillator (LO) is
used to downconvert the signal to a 2- 12 GHz intermediate frequency (IF); the lower
sideband is selected with a low-pass filter in front of the mixer. The IF signal is
further amplified by a cooled IF amplifier prior to exiting the dewar. Attenuators are
inserted at the output of the HEMT amplifier and the mixer to improve the impedance
match between the amplifiers and other components to prevent oscillations, and to
prevent gain compression in the IF amplifier. We employ a quarter-wave dielectric fin
in circular waveguide to make the receivers sensitive to circular polarization, which
reduces sensitivity to linearly polarized foregrounds such as Galactic synchrotron
emission 1

We periodically inject a correlated broadband noise source to calibrate

the correlator output (see §5.3) via a 30 dB waveguide coupler in front of the HEMT
amplifier. Also, as discussed in §3.4.3, we have installed a waveguide isolator in front
of the HEMT to reduce the amount of correlated noise from the HEMT input that
may be coupled through the antenna to adjacent receivers, which would produce an
undesired correlated signal. Photos of the receiver assembly are shown in Fig. 4.3.
Many of the components in the receiver are available as stock or custom built
items from microwave component suppliers, but some must be designed and/or built
in-house. The antennas, described in Chapter 3, and the thermal break, for example, were designed by the author; HEMT amplifiers were built in-house by J. Kovac
from an NRAO design (Pospieszalski 1993; Pospieszalski et al. 1994). The gain and
noise temperature curves for one of the DASI HEMT amplifiers is shown in Fig. 4.4.
Suppliers and specifications of other components are given in Table 4.1.
The design of the DASI instrument was largely driven by the technological feasibility of attaining excellent receiver noise performance, with noise temperatures of
~ 30 K. The noise temperature of a device is defined as the temperature of a black-

body (or matched resistor) which, when inserted at the input of the device, would
IDuring the austral summer 2000-2001 we incorporated a rotating achromatic >-/4 retarder,
which enables us to switch between left- and right-handed circular polarization states, useful for
polarization observations.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

IF out
2-12 GHz

Cold IF amp

------- 1

QuarterAntenna

HEMTamp

30 dB coupler

T= 10K

T=50K

-- -

- -

-- -

- -

__ -

- -

__ -

- -

_ _ _ I

Noise source
input

Figure 4 . 1 DASI receiver schematic diagram.

WAVEGUIDE AITENUATOR
HEMT AMPLIFIER

CORRUGATED HORN

IXER

AND LENS

SDK SHIELD

COLDHEAD

30 DB COUPLER

STAIN LESS STEEL fRO NT PLATE

MYLAR WAVEGUIDE VACUUM WINDOW
1/4-WAVE DIELECTRIC FIN

WAVEGUIDE GAP THERMAL BREAK

Figure 4.2 DASI receiver physical layout. The dewar is attached to the telescope via the stainless
steel front plate. The stepper motor, shown on left, was not used during the first season but is
currently being used to manipulate rotating poiarizers.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

Figure 4.3 Side view of the open DASI receiver, showing the various RF components in the signal
chain. In the top photo, the horn antenna (not shown) is to the right. The receiver output is at left.
The lower photo shows an interior detail, including the output of the horn throat, waveguide thermal
break covered in reflective mylar (superinsulation), and the )../4 dielectric fin waveguide section.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

"22

.l4

3.'5

GIh

Figure 4.4 HEMT amplifier gain and noise temperature curves for one of the DASI amplifiers (Ka36)

built at the University of Chicago. The top panel shows the forward gain (S21), the reflection loss
at the input (Sl1) and output (822) ports, and the reverse gain (812, off chart). The lower panel
shows the noise temperature performance (multiple curves are repeated measurements). The noise
temperature curve has an undetermined overall vertical offset.

double the noise power seen at the output. It is the standard way to express noise
performance in radio astronomy, where the observing frequencies are in the RayleighJeans limit of the calibrator load Planck spectrum, so that output power is linearly
related to the temperature of the load

(4.1)
where Tn is the noise temperature of the device and T10ad is the load temperature.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

I Component
Isolator

30 dB Coupler

Supplier
Channel Microwave Corp.
Camarillo, CA 93012

Model #
IR627

Millitech, LLC
Northampton , MA 01060

CGC-28-SL3 NO

Spec
Ret. Loss 15.9 dB min

Ins. Loss 0.8 dB max
Isolation 16 dB min
Coupling 30.0 dB
Flatness ± 1.5 dB
Ins. Loss 0.5 dB
Directivity 17.0 dB
Input Ret. Loss 23 dB

W / G attenuator

Custom Microwave, Inc.
Longmont, CO 80501
Spacek Labs, Inc .
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

LA28S

Mixer

Spacek

KaKa-9

38 GHz Gunn asc.
Cold IF amplifier

Spacek
Miteq, Inc.
Hauppauge, NY 11788

AMF-4D-D21DI2D5DK-CRYO

Low-pass wig filter

LPF27-38

GKa-380-1

Output Ret. Loss 21 dB
Adjustable atten.
(6 dB nominalj Ins. Loss 0.5-0.8 dB , f < 36 GHz
Rejection> 28 dB, f = 38 GHz
Rejection> 40 dB, f > 40 GHz
IF 2 12 GHz
LO 38 GHz, +3 dEm
Cony. Loss 5.5- 5.8 dB, f = 26-36 GHz
Output power 110 mW, f
38 GHz
Freq. 2 12 GHz
Gain 30.0 dB min
Flatness ±2.0 dB max
Pout @ IdB compo 0 dBm min
Input Ret. Loss 9.6 dB max
Output Ret. Loss 9.6 dB max
Noise Temp. 50 K max @ 77 K

Table 4.1 DAS! receiver component specifications.

Given receiver components with noise temperatures T ni , the noise temperature of the
receiver is given by
Tn2

Tcx = Tnl + G

Tn3

+ G 1G 2 + ... ,

(4.2)

where Tni is the noise temperature of component i, referenced to its input, Gi is the
component gain, and the ordering of the components starts with the first component
in the RF chain. If the receiver noise temperature Tcx is being calculated, the first
component is usually the feed horn, which for DASI is the complete antenna; if
the total system noise temperature Tsys is being calculated, the first component is
the atmosphere. The noise temperature of passive lossy components such as the
atmosphere or waveguide is given by
(1 - G)TphYs

(4.3)

where Tphy , is the physical temperature of the component, (1 - G) is its emissivity,
and (1- G) Tphys is the apparent temperature at the output, which must be divided by

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

the gain G to refer the temperature to the equivalent temperature at the input, Tn.
To achieve low noise temperatures, the most crucial components are the first stage
amplifier and the components which precede it in the RF chain. All components which
follow the first stage amplifier make lesser contributions, mitigated by the first-stage
amplifier gain. In the receiver design, we therefore minimize the amount of warm
waveguide preceding the HEMT, ensure that the dielectric used in the quarter-wave
fin has low-loss, and ensure that the isolator and noise source waveguide coupler have
low insertion loss (Le., gains near unity).
To test the noise temperature of the receiver, the noise temperature of the device
is measured by placing both a hot load (usually at ambient temperature Th ~ 300 K)
and a cold load (usually at liquid Nitrogen temperature Te = 77 K) in front of the
receiver and measuring the power ratio y = Phi Pc. The noise temperature of the
receiver is then given by

T. - (Th - Te) _ T.
rx (y _ 1)
e·

(4.4)

Receiver noise performance, both expected and realized, is discussed in §4.4.

4.3

Cryogenic Design

The first-stage HEMT amplifier and all waveguide RF components are cooled to
~ 10 K by a two-stage Gifford-McMahon cycle DE-202N Helium refrigerator, manu-

factured by IGC-APD Cryogenics 2 The motion of the displacer assembly is governed
by gas pressure, and rare-earth materials in the second-stage displacer enable a noload second stage temperature of 6 K, with a no-load first-stage temperature around
35 K. For our expected first and second stage loads of 2.1 Wand 0.35 W, respectively, the DE-202N has a performance specification of 43 K for the first stage and
7.5 K for the second stage. In practice, we achieve somewhat higher temperatures,
50-70 K for the first stage (measured at the IF amplifier) and 9-15 K for the second
2IGC-APD Cryogenics Inc., 1833 Vultee St., Allentown, PA 18103-4783.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

Figure 4.5 Receiver cool down performance for the HEMT amplifier (solid line), which is thermally
connected to the second stage, and for the IF amplifier (dashed line), which is thermally connected
to the first stage.

stage (measured at the HEMT amplifier). While some of this discrepancy may be due
to higher than expected thermal loading, the significant variability in the first-stage
temperatures between receivers may indicate deviations in the coldhead performance
from that given in the specification sheets. Typical cooldown time for the receivers
is 6 hr (see Fig. 4.5).
In the DASI dewar cryogenic design, a gold plated radiation shield thermally
connected to the first stage takes the ambient temperature radiative load, and is also
used to heat-sink the coaxial cables which run from the rear wall of the dewar to
the RF components. The radiation shield is supported from the front plate of the
cylindrical dewar by 1/4" O.D. x 1/32" wall G-lO support struts. The G-10 struts
are epoxied using Stycast 2850FT3 to angled aluminum blocks which screw into the
radiation shield and front plate of the dewar. The structure proved to be both rigid
3Manufactured by Emerson & Cuming, Inc., 869 Washington Street, Canton, MA 02021.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

and durable.
Unscrewing the front plate from the dewar allows the radiation shield and RF
components to be removed in a modular fashion. Electrical connections to the active
RF components are made with 32 gauge phosphor bronze wiring4 to minimize the
thermal load. An interior connector bulkhead near the dewar output was used as
a convenient break point. The phosphor bronze wiring was mechanically stripped,
and soldered to Micro-D 5 connectors. The solder connections were potted in Stycast
2850FT, using embedded heat-shrink tubing for strain relief. This wiring technique
proved to be extremely reliable (only one wire has failed in 14 dewars). Short jumper
wires bridged the connector bulkhead to the hermetic military-style circular connectors 6 on the rear dewar wall. The RF and IF signals are transmitted in 0.085 11 O.D.
semi-rigid Be eu coaxial cable 7 to minimize the thermal load on the first and second stages. Thermal isolation between the horn and cold waveguide components is
accomplished with a section of circular waveguide re-entrant in a cylinder of G-10
tubing with a small 0.005 11 gap (see Fig. 4.6). A listing of the thermal budget for the
DASI dewars is given in Table 4.2.
The waveguide vacuum seal was implemented with a 0.0005 11 Mylar film membrane
at the termination of the horn throat, with an RF choke and o-ring seal (Fig. 4.7).
The three o-rings at the front of the dewar (the throat vacuum seal, and two on the
dewar front plate) are designed to operate at polar ambient temperatures. The o-ring
grooves are designed with a 30% squeeze, higher than usual in order to maintain seal
at polar temperatures. For the o-ring material, we tested sample o-rings made with
various low-temperature silicone compounds provided to us by Precision Associates8
and found their silicone compound # 19701 to be superior to other compounds (including other silicone compounds) for low-temperature performance. This compound
4 Available from Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc., 575 McCorkle Blvd., Westerville, OH 43082.

5Manufactured by ITT-Cannon, 666 E. Dyer Road Santa Ana, CA 92705.
·Supplied by Detoronics Corp., 10660 East Rush St., So. El Monte, CA 91773.
7Manufactured by Precision TUbe Co., Coaxitube Division, 620 Naylor Mill Road, Salisbury, MD
21801.
Bprecision Associates, Inc., 740 N. Washington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55401.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

IZl 1. 125

1Zl0.3 15
0.005 GAP
OFHC CO PPER
0.688 O.D. X 0.03 1 WALL

G-1 0 TUB ING

Figure 4.6 Cross section of the DASI receiver waveguide thermal break. The waveguide thermal
break consists of a section of cold circular re-entrant waveguide with a G-I0 stand-off. A 0.005"
waveguide gap at the throat end provides the thermal isolation. Dimensions are in inches.

First Stage
Part
Radiation shield
G-lO shield standoffs
Be Cu coax
Phosphor bronze wires
IF amp (Miteq)

Qty
18

Specifications
A ~ 1360 cm< , € - 0.01
A = 0.14 cm2 , l = 4.1 em
A = 0.018 cm2 , l = 14 em
A = 3.2 X 10- 4 cmZ, l = 20 em
130 mA @ 4.3 V
Total first stage load:

Thermal Load (W)
0.62
0.14
0.76
0.02
0.56
2.1

Second Stage
Radiation
G-lO web HEMT standoff
Phosphor bronze wires
Be Cu coax
Mixer (Spacek)
HEMT amp
HEMT amp LED 's
G-lO waveguide thermal break

A ~ 600 em", € ~ 0.1
A/I"" 0.08em
A = 3.2 X 10- 4 cm2 , I = 20 em
A = 0.018 em', I = 10 em

2.5 V, 20 rnA
4 stages x 10 mA @ 1.2 V
6 rnA @ 7.8 V
A = 0.41 cm 2 , 1= 4.1 em
Total second stage load:

0.00
0.01
0.02
0.11
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.06
0.35

Table 4.2 DASI receiver thermal load budget. Assumes ambient, first stage, and second stage
temperatures of 300 K, 50 K, and 10 K, respectively.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

O.04B--1

0.361

0.271

I ~f-+---'
I I

0.225

0.203
0.1575

RF CHOKE GROOVE
O-RING GROOVE

Figure 4.7 Detail of the horn throat, showing the a-ring seal and RF choke. The RF choke is
designed to have )..j 4 electrical length both radially, from the waveguide wall to the choke groove, and
longitudinally along the depth of the choke groove, to present an electrical short at the waveguide
wall. The radial length takes into account the relative dielectric constant of the Mylar vacuum

window, €r = 3. Dimensions are in inches.

maintained elasticity and vacuum at dry ice temperature (195 K). Although silicone
is He permeable, we found that this did not affect our ability to leak check the dewars
with judicious use of He and a He leak checker (the Mylar vacuum window is much
more permeable than the silicone o-rings). As an additional precaution against o-ring
failure, we installed a resistive heater on the horn throat near the vacuum window
o-ring seal (see Fig. 4.3), since this interface, between the ambient temperature horn
and the 10 K cold RF waveguide, was expected to be the coldest and most vulnerable vacuum seal. The actual throat temperatures ranged from 240- 260 K during
the austral winter, and the throat heaters proved unnecessary. The front plate of the
dewar is made with 304 stainless steel, and is pocketed on the interior side to increase
thermal isolation between the horn (which is outside at ambient temperature) and the
dewar exterior, on the inside of the telescope cabin, in order to prevent ice buildup
on the dewar exteriors and prevent excessive heat loss from the telescope cabin.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

4.4

Performance

During initial receiver tests, noise temperature performance was significantly worse
than expected; the problem was eventually traced to gain compression in the cold IF
amplifier. In one test, the bolometric IF output power of the receiver was measured
to be 300 f.1W (-5 dBm), The cold IF amplifier output power at 1 dB compression
was specified at 0 dBm minimum, and was measured on one of the amplifiers to
be +5 dBm. However, to affect the noise temperature measurement by < 1 K, the
output power must be below the 0.03 dB compression level, which for the measured
amplifier occurred at an output power of - 10 dBm.
The gain compression problem was remedied by inserting an SMA attenuator at
the output of the mixer. In production assembly, IF amplifier gain compression was
tested by measuring receiver noise temperature at normal HEMT amplifier bias settings, and with the fourth stage voltage reduced, which reduces the HEMT amplifier
gain without significantly affecting the noise performance. Attenuators with values
of 3-6 dB were inserted at the mixer output if a problem was detected.
A number of tests were performed with various receiver configurations in order
to determine the contributions of various components to the overall receiver noise
temperature; these are tabulated in Table 4.3. The receiver noise temperatures are
somewhat higher than we anticipated. This was due to a combination of factors,
most notably, the noise temperature due to the warm throat , thermal break, and
cold waveguide were higher than expected; there was also significant variability in
the HEMT amplifier performance, and higher noise temperatures near the lower and
upper edges of the 26-36 GHz band. A plot of the receiver temperatures, as measured
with thermal loads during calibration at the South Pole, is shown in Fig. 4.8.
The only nagging design flaw in the receivers was the semi-rigid IF coax which connects the cold IF amplifier to the feed through on the rear dewar bulkhead. Although
this coax section has a 90° dogleg bend to accommodate strain relief, the solder joint
on the cable connector near the feed through mechanically failed on multiple receivers

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

Component
Lens
Warm throat, thermal break, cold wig
Front-end isolator
Directional coupler
HEMT amplifier
Mixer
Cold IF amplifier
Total:

Expected Tn (K)
0.01

Actual Tn (K)
4~5

10 ~ 15

1O~30 K (across band)

0.03
0.2
16 ~2l

20~40

Table 4.3 Expected and actual noise temperature contributions of various receiver components.

55
50
45
40
35
~ 30

E-<~ 25

20
15
10

30
32
Freq (GHz)

Figure 4.8 DASI receiver noise temperatures measured during calibration, February 2001. The
noise temperatures include the corrugated horn and lens.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

when cold. The reasons for this may be a thermal length change between the IF
amplifier, connected via the radiation shield to the front of the dewar, and the rear
dewar bulkhead, or abuse during assembly in the tight space underneath the top 0ring flange of the dewar. The broken solder joints were repaired with a copper braid
reinforcement. 9
Occasionally during the observing season, a receiver would slowly warm; the problem was usually fixed by briefly disconnecting the coldhead valve motor, and allowing
the dewar to warm slightly before reconnecting. The likely culprit was contaminants
in the He lines which froze in the coldhead, impeding performance. Rarely would
the vacuum in a dewar go soft; we found no need to install activated charcoal in the
dewars to keep them cold for extended periods of time (Fig. 4.9). After an initial
shakedown period, the receivers proved to be very reliable performers, which allowed
extended uninterrupted observations.

9During the austral summer 2000-2001 the IF amplifier semi-rigid coaxial cables were replaced
with cables which incorporated a 360 0 loop to increase cable flexibility.

CHAPTER 4. RECEIVERS

100r---rr-.-----r----.-

May 2000 Jun

Jul

Aug
Date

Sep

Oct

Nov

30r---n-.-----.-----~

S-20

g,
:;lID
"llN
O~~~~--~--~----~--~----~

May 2000

Jun

Jul

Aug
Date

Sep

Oct

Nov

Figure 4.9 DASI receiver physical temperatures throughout the first season of observing. The
receivers stayed cold for extended periods of time, mostly without trouble. The abrupt spike in
temperatures in mid-August was due to a power outage.

Chapter 5

Observations

5.1

Observing Strategy

The science goal for the initial season was to measure the CMB angular power spectrum in the range 100 < I < 900 as accurately as possible, and to make high signal-tonoise images of the CMB. To this end, we observed widely separated fields on the sky,
both to minimize sample variance through increasing the number of independent sky
samples, and to facilitate rapid data analysis by minimizing interfield correlations.
CMB fields were observed over the period 05 May- 07 November 2000, during which
we accumulated 97 days of observations. Observations were never prevented due to
weather, and only 5% of data were lost due to weather based edits (see §5.4), confirming previous assessments of the exceptional quality of the site (Lay & Halverson
2000; Chamberlin et al. 1997).
Due to the lack of ground shields in the initial season (now installed), the instrument was susceptible to ground emission, particularly on baselines with a (u, v)
radius < 40 (I .$ 250). Ground signal amplitudes are as much as tens of Jy on the
shortest baselines, but show little temporal variability on time scales of many days.
One advantage of observing near the South Pole is that sources track at a constant
elevation, which helps to reduce azimuthal variability in the ground signal as the
source is tracked. To mitigate the ground signal, we sequentially observed a series of
8 fields at constant elevation, separated by 1h in right ascension (RA), over the same

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

Row

RA (J2000)
220000
21 30 00
22 3000
23 0000

Dec (J2000)
-610000
-670000
-550000
-490000

Dates Observed
04 May 2000-29 May 2000
13 Jun 2000-16 Jul 2000
19 Jul 2000- 16 Sep 2000
12 Sep 2000-08 Nov 2000

Days Observed
14
24
28
31

Table 5 .1 DASI CMB field row coordinates and dates observed. Field positions are obtained by

adding 0- 7" to the RA listed for each row.

F igure 5.1 Locations of the DASI CMB fields, plotted over the IRAS 100 I'm map, in equatorial
coordinates. The color map is logarithmic, spanning 4 decades of intensity.

range in azimuth, allowing us to reject a ground contribution common to the 8 fields
in the analysis. Observations were divided among 4 constant declination (elevation)
rows of 8 fields, on a regular hexagonal grid spaced by 1h in RA, and 6° in declination.
The fields were selected to avoid the Galactic plane and to coincide with the area of
lowest emission in the IRAS 100 J.Lm map of the southern sky (Fig. 5.1) . The elevation of the rows are 61°,67°,55°,49°, which we label the A, B, C and D rows for the
order in which they were observed (see Table 5.1 for coordinates and dates observed) .
The field separation of 1h in RA represents a compromise between immunity to time
variability of the ground signal and a desire to minimize interfield correlations.
A given field row was observed daily over two azimuth ranges, for a total of 16

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

hours per day, with the remainder of the time divided among various calibration and
pointing tasks (see §5.2 and §5.3). Phase and amplitude calibration were accomplished
through daily observations of bright Galactic sources, permitting determination of the
calibrator flux on all baselines to better than 2%. For the A row, the Carina nebula
was used for amplitude calibration, and Centaurus A was used for phase calibration.
For the B, C, and D rows, PKS J0859-4731, a bright compact HII region nearly pointlike at the angular resolution of DASI, was used as both an amplitude and phase
calibrator. Both the Carina nebula and PKS J0859-4731 were initially calibrated
using thermal loads, as discussed in §5.3. The number of days for which each of the
four rows was observed is 14, 24, 28 and 31 for the A, B, C and D rows, respectively,
for a total integration time of 28-62 hr per field.

5.2

Pointing

A pointing model for the DASI telescope was developed using images from a 5-inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain optical telescope and video camera assembly. Bright stars, detectable year-round, were used to determine values for an 8-parameter pointing model;
rms residual offset positions for a set of 80 stars were ~ 25" after the pointing model
was applied. The offset between the deck rotation and optical axes of the telescope
was determined by a series of star images taken while rotating the deck axis; this
offset was included in the radio pointing model. The radio pointing axis was checked
by measuring phase variations while rotating the deck axis during observations of
PKS J0859-473138; phase offsets were negligible, confirming the pointing model.
One unique aspect of an interferometer is that the pointing (i.e., the center of
the reconstructed image) is determined by the phase calibration, not the direction
that the antennas are pointed on the sky. The relative pointing error between the
celestial phase calibrator and the observed field determines the pointing error. Also,
an error in the known position of the celestial phase calibrator will translate into
a pointing error. As an additional check of the radio absolute pointing error, we

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

calculated offsets between DASI detected point source positions and PMN southern
catalog coordinates (Wright et al. 1994) . The calculated offset was generally less
than 2', with a drift « I' over the period during which each row was observed. This
offset is larger than our pointing error as determined by optical measurements; the
discrepancy may be due to point source positional fitting uncertainty or an error in the
known position of our celestial phase calibrators. While a constant absolute pointing
error does not affect the CMB power spectrum data analysis for widely separated
fields, the removal of point sources with positions derived from external information
is affected; we therefore applied a derived overall offset for each field row to those
PMN point source positions which we constrain in the data (see §7.2.4).

5.3

Calibration

The daily calibration tasks consisted of observations of celestial calibrator sources
described in §5.1, and calibration of the relative amplitude of the real and imaginary
correlator multiplier outputs. The latter was accomplished by injecting broadband
correlated noise into the receivers while modulating the local oscillator (LO) quadrature phases by 90° in turn for each receiver. These data were obtained daily to
calibrate the visibility data. Absolute calibration of the celestial amplitude calibrator
sources, which we performed twice, was achieved through measurements of thermal
loads, as described below.

5.3.1

Absolute Calibration

Absolute calibration sources such as planets and the CMB dipole, which are frequently
used in CMB experiments, cannot be used directly by the DASI telescope; the planets
are always close to the horizon with signal contaminated by ground emission, and
DASI is not sensitive to the large angular scale CMB dipole moment. Initial absolute
amplitude calibration was performed by using ambient and liquid Nitrogen thermal

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

loads placed in front of the antenna apertures to calibrate an internal correlated noise
source. The noise source calibration was then immediately transferred to a bright
celestial source. This absolute calibration procedure was done twice, in February 2000
and again in February 2001. In the first instance, the calibration was transferred to
the Carina nebula. At the termination of the A-row observations in late May, we
decided to use PKS J0859-4731 as both an amplitude and phase calibration source
since it was more compact and a stronger source on long baselines. 1 We transferred
our absolute calibration from the Carina nebula to PKS J0859-4731 through a series of
interleaved observations of both sources. In the February 2001 procedure, the noise
source calibration was transferred directly to PKS J0859-4731 (a bright, compact
HII region). The overall flux scales resulting from the two independent absolute
calibrations are found to agree to 0.3%, consistent with our estimate of ~ 1% overall
statistical uncertainty in the measurement and transfer procedure. The systematic
uncertainty in determining the thermal load effective temperature is 3%, which is the
dominant contribution to the uncertainty in our overall flux scale. This uncertainty
was determined through consideration of the specifications and measured error of the
DT-4702 temperature diodes, comparison of measured ambient load temperatures to
weather station ambient temperature readings, and specifications of the Eccosorb 3
loads. The I-a flux scale calibration uncertainty, expressed as a percentage of 1(1 +
I)CI/27r, is 7% (3.5% in !:>.T/T) and is constant across all power spectrum bands.
Band power estimates are also affected, though weakly, by errors in the estimated
aperture efficiency, on which our uncertainty is 4%. This uncertainty was estimated
from discrepancies between the measured and theoretical beam-widths described in
§3.4.2. As noted in §6.4.3, the rms sensitivity of any visibility to CMB fluctuations
scales as the square-root of the effective aperture area ,jAelf , regardless of the baseline
length. Thus an error in the estimated aperture efficiency affects the power spectrum
1 At 30 GHz, the Carina nebula has visibility amplitudes ranging from 550 Jy on short baselines
to 50 Jy on long baselines, as compared to 250 and 100 Jy, respectively, for PKS J0859-4731.
'Manufactured by Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc., 575 McCorkle Blvd., Westerville, OH 43082.
3Manufactured by Emerson & Cuming, Inc., 869 Washington Street, Canton, MA 02021.

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

equally in all bands if the visibilities are uncorrelated. Correlations between visibilities
from baselines that are nearby in the (u, v) plane are also affected by an error in the
aperture efficiency, but numerical simulations show that this effect tends to cancel
the error in the visibility sensitivity estimate. The result is that an uncertainty in
our knowledge of the aperture efficiency contributes a band-power uncertainty which
is constant at 4% except in the three lowest-l bands, where the cancellation of errors
causes it to decrease. In using the current DASI results for parameter estimation,
we have found no significant difference between treating this small aperture efficiency
(beam) uncertainty separately with its low-l variation included, and treating it as
constant at 4% to yield a total I-a calibration uncertainty of 8%, constant across all
band powers (4% in !:::;T/T).

5.4

Data Reduction

Raw data from the correlators, along with monitoring data from various telescope
systems, are accumulated in 8.4-s integrations. These short integrations are edited
before being combined for analysis. Data edits fall into three categories: edits based
on hardware or software deficiencies, edits on observing conditions (sun and moon
positions or weather), and calibration edits.
In the first category, we reject data from receivers that have warmed beyond
nominal threshold temperatures, are absent, for which the LO has lost lock, or where
defective IF channel total power diodes prevent us from properly setting the IF gain.
Together, these edits reject ~ 5% of the data. We reject correlator channels for which
the real/imaginary gain ratio falls outside the range 0.9 ± 0.3 in amplitude or 0 ± 20°
in phase. The range limits were determined from empirical distributions of the gain
ratios, and were set to cut the non-Gaussian tails of the distribution, where hardware
defects such as a faulty microstrip or multiplier cell were likely to be responsible for
the gain imbalance. (The offset from unity in the mean real/imaginary gain ratio
is due to asymmetry between the real and imaginary parts of the correlator card.)

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

We also reject multiplier real/imaginary gain ratios which vary by more than 10%
during any 24-hr observing schedule. Together, the multiplier gain ratio edits reject
~ 11% of the data.

Lastly in this category, we trim field observations so that all eight

fields are observed over precisely the same azimuth range, so that we may remove a
common ground signal during analysis. This edit rejects ~ 9% of the data.
In the second category, we edit data based on the positions of the sun and moon,
and when we detect significant correlations in the noise due to weather. The closest
approach of the moon to the pointing axis of the telescope was 36°, and the closest
approach of the sun (while above the horizon) was 89°. We have found that baselines
with (u, v) radii < 40 are susceptible to contamination from the sun and moon. For
these visibilities, we reject data for which either the sun or moon is above the horizon,
which is 69% of the data with (u, v) radii < 40. Because of the strong CMB signal
on short baselines, this edit, although severe, does not appreciably affect the power
spectrum sensitivity. For data with (u, v) radii 2 40, no edits are made based on
moon or sun position.
The presence of atmospheric fluctuations in the data is most apparent in noise
correlations between different visibilities, which are expected to have independent
noise. For the weather edit criterion, we calculate the correlation coefficient matrix
in each IF channel for every 1-hr field observation. We reject all data if any offdiagonal correlation coefficient in any IF channel exceeds ±0.36; this edit rejects 5%
of the data. This threshold was chosen to reject periods of obviously poor weather.
In the power spectrum analysis, we have found that the data consistency does not
depend strongly on this edit threshold.
In the third category, we perform edits based on the quality of bracketing celestial
calibrator observations. We reject data for which the bracketing calibrator observations differ by 10% in amplitude or 30° in phase. We also reject data if one of
the bracketing calibrator observations is shorter than half of its nominal integration
time, increasing the statistical uncertainty of the observation to ;:: 3%. Together the

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

calibrator edits reject ~ 20% of the data.
To minimize the risk of biasing the power spectrum results, we do not edit the data
based on the level of the signal. We have varied the threshold values of the weather,
calibrator, and lunar/solar edit criteria with no significant effect on the angular power
spectrum results.
Collectively, the edits in the three categories above reject ~ 40% of the data. The
edited and calibrated data are combined into 1-hr bins; the uncertainty in the visibility
values are estimated from the scatter in the 8.4-s raw integrations. All observations
of a given set of fields are then combined, and it is these 1560 combined visibilities
per field (78 complex baselines x 10 correlator channels, before edits) which form the
input to the angular power spectrum likelihood analysis.

5.5

Field Images

Although we estimate the CMB angular power spectrum directly from the visibility
data without an imaging step, we can also create field images by taking the Fourier
transform of the visibility data. Image generation is useful as a visual check to indicate
the source and nature of the detected signal, for identifying point sources in the fields,
and for comparison with CMB images generated by other experiments. To generate
field images, a common ground signal is removed from each visibility for each 8-field
observation. Point sources are also apparent in some of the images; we fit for their
positions and flux densities from the data and subtract them from the images. The
image at this stage is a dirty map which shows radial streaks which are due to gaps
in the (u, v) plane coverage (Le., the synthesized beam). A standard deconvolution
algorithm, called CLEAN (Hogbom 1974), is used to deconvolve the beam from the
signal in the center portion of the image. The fi eld image generation process is shown
in Fig. 5.2. CLEANed images of five fields , shown in Fig. 5.3, demonstrate that the
rms signal attenuates with the expected shape of the DASI primary beam, and that
t he residual fluctuations at the edge of the map are consistent with instrument noise.

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

This is a convincing sign that the origin of the signal is on the sky and is not a
near-field or instrumental systematic effect.
We emphasize that the ground and point source subtraction technique used here
to generate field images is not used in the power spectrum analysis. There we use
constraint matrices, described in §6.8 and §7.2.4, to marginalize over the ground and
point source contributions. The constraint procedure does not require knowledge of
the ground signal amplitude or point source flux densities.

Figure 5.2 A DASI field image (BS) before and after ground and point source removal. The two
concentric circles represent the -3 dB and -10 dB taper of the DASI primary beam. The top left
panel shows the field image without the ground or point source signals removed. The top right panel
shows the image with ground signal removed, revealing a prominent point source. In the lower left
panel, both the ground and point source signals have been removed, revealing a spatially extended
signal which is tapered by the DASI primary beam. In the lower right panel, the synthesized beam
(shown by the point source image in the upper right panel) is deconvolved from the image using the
CLEAN algorithm. Field offset coordinates are in arcminutes.

Finally, to display images of the 32 DASI fields (shown in Fig. 5.4), we multiply

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

i·

.. ",mi.

I-

• .... ..\

--. ~

-""

."..

., ............

"'"

AIHIIH( ....... '

Figure 5.3 CLEANed images of five DASI CMB fields, with ground and point sources signals
removed. The two concentric circles represent the -3 dB and -10 dB taper of the DASI primary
beam. Fluctuation power enveloped by the primary beam is apparent in the fields, confirming the
source is in the far-field of the instrument. The lower right panel shows the rms pixel values for field
5 (lower middle panel) as a function of radius (black points), the primary beam taper normalized
to the first rms pixel value (solid line), and the theoretical rms image noise, determined from the
scatter in 8.4-s visibility data (dashed line).

the images by the inverse of the DASI primary beam pattern to flatten the response to
CMB fluctuations. The resulting rms signal-to-noise ratio is ~ 4 at the centers of the
images, and ~ 2 at the edges. These images are high signal-to-noise measurements
of CMB anisotropy.

5.6

DASI Detected Point Sources

We employ an iterative technique to detect point sources In the DASI data. We
create modified ground-subtracted field images for each field row, excluding baselines

< 64 ). where most of the CMB signal is present, to improve the signal-to-noise for
point source detection. We divide the individual images by the rms fluctuation level
of the CMB and instrument noise. The rms fluctuation level is calculated in annular

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

100

150
~K

Figure 5.4 Images of the 32 DASI fields, at 20' resolution. Shown are CLEANed maps of the
central 3? 4 FWHM of each primary beam, corrected for the beam taper. Typical rms noise in a 20'
beam is 10 I"K at map center, and 20l"K at the edge. Rows are in order of decreasing elevation: B,
A, C, D from bottom to top, with RA increasing to the left.

bins for each row of fields, to take into account the primary beam taper. Using the
position of the highest amplitude pixel in the 8-fields with at least 4.5-a significance, a
dirty map (i.e., a simulated observation) of a point source with matching flux density
is generated, subtracted from the field image, and added back with 1/7 amplitude to
the other 7 field images (to compensate for the negative point source flux density in
those fields due to ground subtraction). This process is iterated until all point sources
detected with> 4.5-a significance have been removed. Using this technique, we detect
28 point sources in the DASI data; we can detect a 40 mJy source at beam center
with> 4.5-a significance. All have identifiable counterparts in the PMN southern
(PMNS) catalog (Wright et al. 1994). The estimated point source flux densities range
from 80 mJy to 2.8 Jy, and are tabulated in Table 5.2.
The tabulated point source positions and flux densities are used to subtract the
point sources from the field images. These point source positions are also used to

CHAPTER 5. OBSERVATIONS

Field
Al
A3
A4
A6
A6
A6
A8
A8
B2
B3
B5
B7
B8
B8
Cl
Cl
C5
C5
C5
C7
C7
C8
D2
D2
D4
D5
D7
D8

05 06 43.5

-61 13 12.5

05 03 29.6
23 27 34.1
01 12 21.1
03 14 24.8
04 56 41.0
04 43 35.4
2246 12.7
22 38 46.5
02 28 10.3
02 23 27.2
02 29 01.4
04 29 00.9
04 25 08.6
05 40 29.4
24 04 29.2
23 47 40.9
021036.7
03 0720.2
04 55 52.6

-60 52 44.7
·690856.0
·6642 03.9
·663543.2
-655226.0
·662755.4
·6651 04.0
·5606 15.9
-56 59 36.2
·5544 03.8
·5344 17.3
·54 03 41.7
·5346 35.9
·5331 21.6
-54 1637.1
-4735 54.6
·49 47 10.4
·51 00 37.1
·48 53 10.9
·46 15 18.7

· 0.240
·1.751
·1.592
2.658
1.335
2.258
1.195
·0.257
·0.968
· 0.143
· 0.146
·0.722
1.531
0.756
-1.987
1.669
1.206
·0.713

y (0) •
·0.634
0.035
0.122
-1.252
-0.073
0.912
· 0.231
0.118
-2.149
0.298
0.343
1.076
0.392
0.112
·1.170
-2.012
-0.735
1.250
0.938
1.223
1.471
0.694
1.396
· 0.827
·2.039
0.099
2.739

05 58 12.9

-50 28 18.7

-0.284

-1.473

RA (J2000)
22 03 31.8
23 58 51.6
01 08 55.4
03 03 42.0
03 09 55.2
02 51 21.4
22 28 52.5

Dec (J2000)
·61 37 51.5
·6057 51.2
·6051 32.7
·62 14 57.2
·61 0302.6
·6004 12.1

X (0) •

0.419
·0.138
1.086
0.431
1.200
· 1.078
0.809
0.425
-O.lDO

Flux Density (Jy)b
0.138
1.319
0.622
1.228

0.295

1.043

0.499
2.336
0.301

Apparent Flux Density (Jy)e
0.105
1.148
0.405
0.695
0.639
0.266
1.719
0.251

0.550

0.145

0.110
0.441
0.141
2.801
0.090
0.798
0.986
0.303
0.331
0.081
0.358
0.206
0.718
0.474
1.036
6.968
0.209
2.280

0.093
0.172
0.048
0.345
0.051
0.123
0.204
0.228
0.155
0.057
0.215
0.092
0.308
0.220
0.273
0.934
0.127
0.219
0.147

a X and Y offset positions from field center.

'26-36 GHz flux density, estimated from the DAS! data.
cFlux density as measured in the DAS! data before compensating for the primary beam taper.
Table 5.2 DAS! detected point sources.

constrain point source contributions to the CMB angular power spectrum, §7.2.4.

Chapter 6

Analysis Formalism

6.1

Introduction

The angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background is difficult to
measure; the fractional temperature fluctuations are 0(10- 5 ). Vast improvements in
experimental sensitivity have been made since the COBE DMR experiment revealed
primordial anisotropy in the CMB with an rms signal-to-noise ratio of unity (Smoot
et al. 1992). Yet sophisticated statistical techniques are still required to extract
meaningful information from modern-day CMB datasets. In addition, datasets are
becoming larger as more sky is measured with increased resolution (de Bernardis
et al. 2000; Hanany et al. 2000; Leitch et al. 2001), and two pending all-sky satellite
surveys, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP, Wright 1999), and Planck (Tauber
2000), will yield maps with 0(10 6 ) pixel elements. Traditional statistical methods
to estimate power spectra, such as dense mapping of the likelihood surface, are not
computationally feasible with such large datasets, and much effort in recent years has
focused on faster algorithms (see, e.g., Tegmark 1997; Bond et al. 2000) to overcome
this difficulty.
In this chapter, we discuss the adaptation of these modern techniques, in particular the iterated quadratic estimator of Bond et al. (1998), to interferometer data in
general, and to the DASI dataset in particular. We review the formalism of CMB
temperature fluctuations (§6.2) and interferometry (§6.3), before we introduce the

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

datavector and covariance matrix calculations (§6.4) and the simple quadratic estimator (of White et al. 1999a) in §6.5. The maximum likelihood estimator, the iterated
quadratic estimator, and refinements are discussed in §6.6 through §6.10, cosmological parameter estimation in §6.11, and finally, an outline of the specific numerical
implementation is given in §6.12.

6.2

The Fundamental Observable

Presently favored cosmological theories predict Gaussian random temperature fluctuations on the CMB sky. A given realization of these random fluctuations can be
written in terms of a spherical harmonic decomposition,
(6.1)
where 8 is a unit 3-vector indicating a point on the celestial sphere. The 2-point correlation function of the sky temperature fluctuations is of particular interest, since for
Gaussian random fluctuations it contains all of the information about the underlying
Gaussian random variable. The 2-point correlation function is given by (see, e.g.,
Whi te & Srednicki 1995)
(6.2)
where () = COS- 1(81'82) is the separation angle on the sky, and ( ) denotes the ensemble
average over many realizations of the CMB sky. Inserting Eq. (6.1) into Eq. (6.2),

L aim 1/;" (8tl L al'm' Yi'm' (8
- L L (aimal'm') 1/;"(81)Yi'm,(82).

Csky (()) =

\l,m

2) )

(6.3)

l',m'

(6.4)

I,m 11,m'

In a Gaussian random realization of the sky, the spherical harmonic coefficients aim
are uncorrelated, have random phase, an expectation value of zero,
(6.5)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

and a second moment, or variance, specified by

(6.6)
(6.7)
where

(6.8)
is the angular power spectrum, which is independent of m due to the assumed spherical symmetry of the sky. The relationship between the 2-point correlation function

Csky(B) and the angular power spectrum can be expressed as
Csky(B) =

L C I)/;"(SI)Yim(S2)

(6.9)

- ..!.L(21 + 1)CtFl(sl . S2),
47f 1

(6.10)

where in Eq. (6.10) the spherical harmonic addition theorem has been used to convert
the series of spherical harmonic prod ucts to Legendre polynomials Fl.
For fields that are small in angular extent, the sky can be well approximated
as flat. In this limit, the temperature fluctuations can be decomposed into Fourier
modes,

(6.11)
in analogy with Eq. (6.1); we use C) to denote the Fourier transform of a function.
Here

(x, y)

((s - so) . i, (s - so) .])

(6.12)
(6.13)

is a 2-vector indicating direction cosines on the sky with respect to the (i,J) sky
plane, normal to the field center direction so. For small fields (in which the flat
sky approximation applies), x and yare approximately angles on the sky in radians

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

with respect to SQ. The Fourier conjugate variable of x is u = (u, v), an angular
wavevector.
In the flat sky approximation, the sky temperature correlation function, Eq. (6.2),
can be written as
Csky(lx2 - xII) =

/ t:,.T*
t:,.T
\ y
(X I )y(X 2) /

(6.14)

- \1 du~*(u)e+i2~UXl 1dU'~(u')e-i2~U'X2)
11
du

du' \

(6.15)

~* (u) ~ (U')) e+i2~u'Xl e-i2~u"X2 (6.16)

du \ t:,.:* (u) t:,.:

(U)) e-i2~u'(X2-X,),

(6.17)

where in the last step we have used the fact that

in analogy with Eq. (6.6) above, since the temperature fluctuations are assumed to be
uncorrelated. The flat sky analog to the angular power spectrum Cl can be identified
from Eq. (6.17) as
(6.19)

stu),

(6.20)

using the notation stu) for the power spectrum from Hobson et al. (1995) and White
et al. (1999a). Note that stu) is only dependent on the amplitude of u (here denoted

u == lui, not to be confused with the wavevector components u and v), since the
Universe is assumed to have no preferred orientation. For u ;::; 10, S( u) is related to
C l by (White et al. 1999a)

2S( ) ~ 1(1 + 1)C

(6.21)

1= 27ru.

(6.22)

u -

(27r)2

where

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

The CMB temperature angular power spectrum S(u), or CI , is a fundamental
observable used to test the predictions of cosmological theories. Modern experimental
results are usually reported in units of 1(l+1)/(27f)CI , where scale-invariant primordial
fluctuations will appear as constant in I; we define
1(I+l)C

27f
S(u)

(6.23)

u 2S(u)

(6.24)

Cz/(27f),

(6.25)

which we use in the discussion that follows.

6.3

The Interferometer Response

An interferometer such as DASI directly measures the Fourier transform of the sky
brightness temperature. For any given pair of antennas, this is achieved by taking
the time average of the product of the two signals (see Fig. 6.1). Let the electric field
in a given direction of the sky s be given by

E(s, t) = Eo(s) sin(27fvt)

(6.26)

where v is the RF frequency of the wave. The product of the outputs of the receivers
with the geometry depicted in Fig. 6.1 is

F(s) ex E(s, t)E(s, t - T)
ex Eo(s) sin(27fvt)Eo(s) sin(27fv(t - T))
ex

~EJ(S)(COS(27fVT) - coS(27fV(T + 2t)).

(6.27)

(6.28)
(6.29)

The output of the correlator is the time average of this product, and the rapidly
oscillating second term vanishes with sufficient integration time.
The resulting DC output signal is called the visibility, and represents the amplitude
of a corrugation on the sky with a spatial wavelength that is inversely proportional

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

Figure 6.1 Simple schematic of a two-element interferometer. The 90° phase shift in front of one of

the output multipliers allows both the real and imaginary components of the complex visibility to be
measured. The phase of the integrated output depends on the direction 8, resulting in a sinusoidal
response pattern on the sky which is inversely proportional to the baseline length Ihl. The delay at
phase center, TO = b· So, is usually compensated with a variable delay, shown on the right receiver.
However, in the DASI instrument , all receivers are fixed to an aperture plate which is used to point
the array, eliminating the need for a variable delay.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

to the projected separation of the antenna pair in the direction of the source. A
corrugation with a spatial phase shifted by 90° can also be sampled by taking a
second time average product of the receiver output signals, with one signal delayed
by 90°; this represents the imaginary part of the visibility. The resulting complex
visibility is given by

V(u) =

dxA(x,II)I(x)e- i2 ".u'x.

(6.30)

Here, A(x, II) is the single antenna beam pattern at observing frequency II, normalized
such that A(O, II) = 1, I(x) is the sky brightness distribution, u = (b/ oX· i, b/ oX·])
is the projection of the antenna separation vector b (called the baseline) in the plane
normal to the direction of the source So, expressed in units of the observing wavelength

oX = c/ II. The vector components x are the direction cosines on the sky; the origin of
x , in the direction Bo, is called the phase center. Note that DASI differs from most
conventional interferometers in that the antenna elements are fixed on an aperture
plate rather than individually steerable. A variable delay line, used to eliminate the
delay T = (b'Bo)/ c in systems with individually steerable antennas, is unnecessary. An
exhaustive development of the expression for the visibility can be found in Thompson
et al. (1991).
When observing the CMB, the above expression for the visibility can be rewritten
in terms of the fractional CMB temperature fluctuations defined in Eq. (6.1),

V(u)

= ~~T

1:::.; (x)e- i2".ux

(6.31)

dX A( x, II ) I:::.T
T (x ) e- i2".u·x ,

(6.32)

dxA(x, II)

2kBTII2
g ( II )

where T is the temperature of the CMB, Bv is the Planck function, kB is Boltzmann's
constant, and g(lI) corrects for the difference between derivatives of the RayleighJeans and Planck functions, a ~ 2% correction at our observing frequency. Finally,
the visibility can be written in terms of the Fourier transform of the beam pattern
convolved with the Fourier transform of the CMB temperature fluctuations,

V(u) =

2kBTII2

I:::.T

g(lI) A(u, II) * T

(u).

(6.33)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

From this expression, it is clear that the visibility is a direct measure of the Fourier
transform of the sky temperature fluctuations centered at the angular wavevector u.
The variance of the visibility, (V*(u)V(u)), is closely related to the power spectrum
S(u) [see Eq. (6.20)], the observable we desire to measure, as will be discussed in

more detail below.

6.4

The Datavector and Data Covariance Matrix

For any CMB experiment, the raw time-stream data are calibrated and binned to form
a manageable set of numbers, called the datavector, from which an estimator of the
angular power spectrum may be constructed. For a modern single-dish experiment,
this datavector is usually a pixelized temperature map of the sky. For an interferometric experiment such as DASI, the datavector consists of calibrated time-averaged
visibilities. In the analysis described below, we treat the real and imaginary parts of
the visibility as separate elements of the datavector,
(6.34)

DASI has 78 baselines x 10 IF bands x 2 complex components = 1560 time-averaged
visibility values for each pointing on the sky. For the first season of observations with
DASI, we observed a total of 32 separate fields, one deck rotation per field, for a total
datavector length (before cuts) of 32 x 1560 = 49,920. The angular power spectrum
is estimated directly from the visibility datavector.
The datavector can be written as

= s+n,

(6.35)

where s is the sky signal component and n is the noise component. A signal datavector
element is simply the real or imaginary part of the visibility described above,
(6.36)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

The expectation value of both the signal and noise components is zero,

(s) = (n) = 0 ,

(6.37)

since the sky signal is assumed to be a Gaussian random variable and the interferometer output is insensitive to the CMB monopole moment, and the noise is also
assumed to be well behaved. Of course, in the real world, instrumental (systematic)
offsets and non-CMB sky signals which do not fit this model are present at some level;
these are addressed with the constraint matrix formalism described in §6.8.
In order to construct an estimator for the angular power spectrum, the covariance
mat rix of the datavector must be known , since it describes the filter , particular to a
given instrument and data binning, through which the sky signal and noise enter the
data. The covariance matrix is given by
(~i~j)

(6.38)

(SiSj) + (ninj)

(6.39)

CT + Cn ,

(6.40)

assuming sand n are uncorrelated , where

(6.41)
is called the theory or signal covariance matrix, and

(6.42)
is t he noise covariance matrix.

6.4.1

The Theory Covariance Matrix

The theory covariance matrix contains the information about how a given power
spectrum S(u) presents itself, on average, in the quadratic pairings of the datavector
elements. Traditionally (see, e.g., White & Srednicki 1995), the theory covariance

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

matrix is described in terms of so-called variance window functions (or simply window

functions) Wt,ij,

L WI,ij C

(6.43)

_ roo du Wij(u) S(u).
Jo

(6.44)

The window functions describe the contribution of the angular power spectrum to a
given covariance matrix element as a function of I or u. Window functions for each
individual multi pole moment I or fine increment du need not be calculated if the
theoretical power spectrum is assumed to be flat over larger bands in I or u.
Following White et al. (1999b), we first consider the theory covariance matrix
element between two real visibility datavector elements for the same field on the sky.
The theory covariance matrix elements are derived using Eq. (6.33) for the visibility:

c!i~R

(VR(Ui)VR(Uj)

(6.45)

CiiCij ( Re ( A(Ui, I/i) *
CiiCij ( Re
x Re

(J ~

6.:

(Ui)) Re ( A(uj, Vj) *

(U)A(Ui - u, Vi))

(J 6.:

(u')A(uj - u', Vj)) ) ,

du'

6.:

(Uj)) ) (6.46)

(6.47)

where
(6.48)
is the pre-constant in Eq. (6.33). Recall that
Re (AB) = Re (A) Re (B) - Im (A) Im (B) ,
so that

c!i~R = CiiCij Jdu Jdu' ( [Re (

6.: (U))

Re (A(Ui - u, Vi))

(6.49)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

- 1m (
x [Re (
-1m (

aiaj

2,; (U))
2,;

(U /)) Re (A(Uj - U', Vj)

~ (U /)) 1m (A(uj - U', Vj) ] )

JJ
du

1m (A(u i - u, Vi)) ]

du' (Re (2,;

(6.50)

(U)) Re (2,; (U /)) )

x Re (A(Ui - u, Vi)) Re (A(Uj - U', Vj) ,

(6.51)

where we have made use of the fact that our beam is symmetric, hence 1m

(A) = o.

We can also make use of the fact that the temperature fluctuations are a real (scalar)
function on the sky, so that
-*

2,T

(6.52)

(u) = T(-u),

Then,
(Re

(~(U)) Re (2,;(U /))) =
(~ ( ~ (u) + 2,;* (U)) x ~ ( 2,; (u /) + 2,;* (U /)) )

(6.53)

~ [ ( 2,;* (-u) 2,; (U/)) + ( 2,;* (u) 2,; (-U/))
+ ( ~* (u) 2,; (U /)) + ( 2,;* (- u) 2,; (- U/)) ]

(6.54)

- 4'1 [S(u)5( -u, U/) + S(u)5(u, -U/)
+ S(u)5(u, U/) + S(u)5(-u, -U/)]

(6.55)

'12 [S(u)5(u, U/) + S(u)5(u, -u /)] ,

(6.56)

making use of Eq. (6.20) in the third step. Finally, the theory covariance matrix
element is reduced to
R/R
CTij
= '2aiaj

S(u) du ~A(ui
- u, Vi) [A(Uj - u, Vj) + A(Uj
+ u, Vj) .

(6.57)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

Similarly, the theory covariance matrix element for two imaginary visibilities is
1/1
CTij
= :iaiaj

du S(u)~A(Ui -

U, /Ii)

[A(Uj -

U, /lj) -

A(Uj

+ U, /lj) 1.

(6.58)

The covariance between real and imaginary visibilities can be shown to vanish,
R/I

I/R

CTij = CTij = 0,

(6.59)

due to the fact that symmetric (real) and antisymmetric (imaginary) modes are always
orthogonal. These do not vanish in the case of interfield correlations, discussed later
in this section.
The function A( u, /I) is the autocorrelation function of the aperture field distribution. It therefore falls to zero for U > D / A, where D = 20 cm is the aperture
diameter. A plot of the aperture autocorrelation function for the DASI horns is shown
in Fig. 6.2. Note that except for the shortest baselines, only one of the additive terms
in the integrand is non-zero, since the autocorrelation functions A(uj - U, /I) and

A(uj + U, /I) are widely separated in the (u, v) plane (see Fig. 6.3).
The window function defined in Eq. (6.44) is given by
(6.60)
where ¢u is the azimuthal polar coordinate of U and +, - are used for the R/ Rand

1/1 covariance matrix elements, respectively. The window function for a diagonal
element of the DASI covariance matrix, for a baseline with IUil = 100 and an observing
wavelength A = 1 cm, is shown in Fig. 6.4. As for the autocorrelation function A(u),
the window function goes identically to zero for lul-luil > D / A. The integrated area
of a given window function Wij(u)/u indicates the sensitivity to a power spectrum
flat in S(u), and falls off as 1/u 2 .
It is conventional in the modern literature to assume the power spectrum is piece-

wise flat in S(u) in several bands for the purposes of estimating the power spectrum
from the data. In this case (which we adopt in the likelihood analysis below), it is
unnecessary to calculate the one-dimensional window functions of Eq. (6.60). Rather,

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

100

- -

3.5

§ 2.5

'.g

-g

DASI aperture
Tophat aperture

1.5
e"'"

t::

...:

0.5
ooL-------~5--------1~0------~
15--~~~2~0--~

Radius (em)

Figure 6.2 The aperture autocorrelation function A(r/)..) for the DASI horn, and a horn with a
tophat field illumination, as a function of radius. The normalization shown follows from the beam
pattern normalization, A(O) = 1.

""w
.,

'"
! ,

-w

-'"
-w

-1~OO

00
o 0 0
0 00
00
0 0
-'"

(0",)

100

200

150

100

-50

- 50

-100

- 100

-150

- uo

-2$0

- 100

100

200

- 2$0

-100

100

200

Figure 6.3 The aperture configuration and (u, v) plane coverage. The left panel depicts the physical
positions of the antenna apertures on the aperture plate. The central panel shows the center points
of the resulting (u,v) coverage (+), and their mirror points (0) which are also measured, due to
the fact that the sky intensity is a real (scalar) function. The right panel shows the limits of the
autocorrelation function (see Fig. 6.2), for the (u, v) locations in the center panel, with solid lines
for the (u, v) locations and dashed lines for their mirror points.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

101

81'-'""o'_ _ _ _- - - -_ - -----,

SX 10'

4.'

,.,

.<;:,

"~ 2.5
~' ..

I.,

0.'

O'~~W-.~,~~~~'~'~IOO~7.IO~
' -7.
"~
O~"'~I~W~

U-V radius 0.)

100

ISO

U- V radius (A)

Figure 6.4 The diagonal DASI variance window functions for a baseline with lui = 100 (left
panel) and for all baselines (right panel), for)' = 1 cm. Each baseline is sensitive to a t otal range
Ll.Utot = 2D /), "" 40 with a FWHM range Ll.u "" 10 corresponding to Ll.l "" 60. T he area under a
given window function indicates the sensitivity of the baseline to a power spectrum flat in S(u); the
sensitivity falls off as 1/u2 . Note that since DASI observes at a range of frequencies, the minimum
and maximum coverage in u extend beyond the limits shown in the right panel.

for a piecewise-flat band p, the two-dimensional integrals in Eqs. (6.57) and (6.58)
may be evaluated directly,
B pi j = -O

uhP

Ulp

2du A(Ui
- u , Vi) [ A(Uj
- u , Vj) ± A(uj
+ u , Vj) ] ,

(6.61)

where Ul p and Uhp are the lower and upper (u, v) radii of band p, respectively. Equation (6.61) represents the instrument filter function that t ranslates a theoretical fl at
band power Sp into its contribution to the data covariance matrix element. For a set
S of flat band powers
(6.62)

Numerical calculation of the theory covariance matrix elements is discussed in §6.12.

Interfield Correlations
Correlations between different fields on the sky become important if the fields are
spaced sufficiently close together t hat the primary beams have significant overlap, as

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

102

is the case with mosaic mapping. For the first year of DASI observations, the fields
were chosen to be widely separated on the sky, to increase the number of independent
sky samples; as a result, interfield correlations for most of the DASI fields are small
and can be neglected. However, for the highest elevation row, at Ii = -670 , the fields
are only separated by 5.8 on the sky, where the interfield correlations begin to have a

significant impact on the power spectrum estimate at the lowest multi pole moments.
For this field row only, we take into account the interfield correlations.
In the fiat sky approximation, the interfield theory covariance matrix elements are
straightforward to derive. We redefine the coordinate system of the sky temperature
distribution function to be fixed at an absolute reference position on the sky. For a
field m with center position Xm in this coordinate system, a phase gradient term in
the visibility is introduced,
(6.63)

(6.64)
(6.65)
with resulting theory covariance matrix elements:

C:/::,jm'

(V;~ "J!')
~aa·
S(u) A(u· - U /1")
2 '

JdU

(6.66)

x [A(Uj - u, Vj) cos(27ru· (x m - x m '))

+ A(Uj + u, Vj) cos(27ru· (xm - X m'))] ,

C~:,jm'

(V;;" "J~,)

2"ll

(6.67)

(6.68)
S(u) -

du """U2A(u; - u , v;)

x [A(Uj - u , Vj) cos(27ru· (xm - x m'))

- A(uj + u, Vj) cos(27ru· (xm - x m ' ))] ,

(6.69)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

103

C:(~,jm' - (Vi! Vj;",)

21CiiCij

(6.70)

S(u) -

du 7A(Ui - u, Vi)

X [-A(Uj - u, Vj) sin(27ru· (X m - x m '))

+ A( Uj + u, Vj) sin(27ru . (Xm - x m '))1'

ci/;~,jm' - (Vi;" Vj!, )

2CiiCij

(6.71)

(6.72)

S(u)-

du 7A(Ui - u , Vi)

[A( Uj - U , Vj) sin(27ru . (Xm - X m '))
+ A(Uj + u, Vj) sin (27ru . (xm - X m'))] .

(6.73)

Comparing the equations above to Eqs. (6.57) and (6.58), there is (as expected from
the shift theorem) an additional sinusoidally oscillating term with spatial frequency
proportional to the field offset vector Xm -

Xm'

which has the general effect of di-

minishing the amplitude of the covariance matrix element relative to the equivalent
element with no field offset.
While the above equations serve to lend intuition about the general behavior
of interfield correlations, the DASI fields are spaced sufficiently far apart (1 h in RA)
that, unfortunately, curvature of the celestial plane cannot be neglected. Among other
difficulties, the (u, v) coordinate projection from the orthographic projection plane
centered on field m to that centered on field m' introduces a rotation and length
distortion. In addition, the finite correlation bandwidth c"v introduces an effective
attenuation (called the delay beam), which is important on the angular separations
of the DASI fields and which therefore must be taken into account. The angular
power spectrum analysis package written by the author, called dasipower (see §6.12),
accounts for orthographic projection effects and integrates over the finite bandwidth of
the DASI frequency channels in order to accurately calculate the interfield covariance
matrix elements when necessary.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

6.4.2

104

The Noise Covariance Matrix

The noise covariance of a simple multiplying correlator, or equivalently, the real or
imaginary output of a complex correlator, is given by (White et al. 1999b; Thompson
et al. 1991):
(6.74)
(6.75)
where G is the antenna gain [Eq. (3.12)J, Tsys is the system temperature (assumed
to be the same for both antennas), Ap is the physical aperture area, tlll is t he IF
bandwidth of the correlator, tlt is the integration time, and 'TJs is a system efficiency
factor, generally near unity. This expression is nearly equivalent to the radiometer
equation for a single antenna, but for the additional factor 1/,;2, which is due to the
fact that the noise voltage for the two separate antennas is uncorrelated. It can easily
be shown that the off-diagonal elements of the noise covariance matrix vanish, even
for baselines which share one antenna.

6.4.3

Visibility Sensitivity

Taking the square root of the ratio of Eq. (6.57) to Eq. (6.75) will give us an estimate
of the rms signal-to-noise P for a given visibility:
Pi

J~:;;

(6.76)

112 TCMB

S(u)

2"-T, 'TJs tllltlt- 2-A eff
sys

~ 0.24

II
(30 GHJ

2(T,y,) -I(
30 K

-2

] 1/2

tlll

)1 /2 (tlt) 1/2

du A (u, II)

1 GHz

S(u) ) 1/ 2 ( Aeff ) 1/ 2
( 2000 JlK 2
262 cm2

(6.77)

(6.78)

where we have assumed S(u) and u2 are roughly constant over the width of the
autocorrelation function in order to remove them from the integral, and Aeff = 'TJ.Ap

CHAPTER 6, ANALYSIS FORMALISM

105

is the effective area of the aperture. For the DASI aperture at v = 30 GHz,
Aef!

duA-2 (u,v) = 136 cm.

(6.79)

This quantity scales linearly with aperture area. Uncertainty in Aef! will translate
into a scaling uncertainty for the power spectrum which is independent of baseline
except for the shortest, most correlated baselines,

6.5

The Simple Quadratic Estimator

Since every visibility, or datavector element, is a direct measurement of the Fourier
transform of the sky plane, a simple estimate of the angular power spectrum S(u ) may
be constructed from any individual datavector element, or subset of elements, While
we choose to implement a full likelihood analysis of the angular power spectrum,
described in §6.6 below, the simple quadratic estimator, introduced by White et aL
(1999b), is a convenient and quick way to estimate the angular power spectrum from
the data, estimate power spectrum sensitivity, and plan observing strategies to achieve
a given science goaL
We use the following notational convention in the discussion of various estimators
in the sections below, Typically, we assume a probability distribution function (PDF)
for the datavector ~ which is also a function of some set of parameters K. The PDF
is denoted P(~IK), and the true value of the parameters is denoted KO' We desire
to estimate Ko from the data, so we construct a set of estimators (which are random
variables), denoted by k" from the data ~ (another set of random variables), which
we hope approximate the true values of the parameters KO. An unbiased estimator
has the property

(k,) = KO,
We use

(6.80)

n to indicate estimators and ( 0) to indicate true values in the sections on

estimators below.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

106

For a given datavector element, an estimator of t he power spectrum is given by

6."2 - Cnu..

S . -_

(6.81)

Bii

where Bii is the instrument filt er function , Eq. (6.61), for a single fiat band power S
spanning all (u, v) radii. The expectation value of Si is then

( . (6.
. -S~)

-0fin.. )

(6.82)

Bii

(6.~)

0 nn..

(6.83)

Bii
(( Si + ni)2) - C nii

(6.84)

Bii

(sl) + (nl) - enii

eTii

(6.85)

Bii

(6.86)

Bii

(6.87)

So ,

with variance
(6.88)
(6.89)
(6.90)
where
C(So)

CT(So) + en

(6.91)
(6.92)

is the covariance matrix. In practice, the single band power simple quadratic estimator

Si must be used as an approximation for the true band power So . Above we have
made use of the fact that for a Gaussian random variable x with zero mean,
(6.93)

107

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

and therefore

v [X2] _ (X 4) _ (X 2) (X2)

An estimator

(6.94)

3(V [X])2 - (V [X])2

(6.95)

2(V[xW

(6.96)

can also be created from a linear combination of datavector

elements,

(6.97)

where wp is a normalized weight vector. With a bit of work, it can be shown that
the covariance matrix for a set of estimators SB is

(6.98)
where the covariance matrix,

(6.99)
may be constructed using the band power estimates Sp to approximate Sop . The
signal and noise contributions to the total variance may be estimated by using only
CT or en in the above equation.
To lend intuition about how sample and noise variance contribute to the total
variance, let us assume for the moment that the datavector elements are independent
(no off-diagonal terms in the covariance matrix) and that B ii , CTii , and Cnii are
constant for all datavector elements. Then, for an estimator Sp constructed from
equal weighting of N datavector elements, the expected fractional uncertainty is

(6.100)

(6.101)

108

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

2.--r-----r------~--------~------_,

°0L-------~--------~--------L-------~2

0.5

RMS signal-to-noise p

1.5

Figure 6 .5 Fractional power spectrum uncertainty vs. rms signal-to-noise ratio, for fixed total
observing time such that N p2 = 20 (arbitrarily chosen). The minimum fractional uncertainty is
achieved for p = 1, regardless of the total observing time.

(6.102)
(6.103)
where, recall Pi == v'CTidCnii [Eq. (6.76) J is the ratio of the rms signal to the rms
noise for the datavector element ~i' and is proportional to the inverse square root
of the integration time ~t. While derived using simplifying assumptions, Eq. (6.103)
serves to lend intuition about the dependence of the power spectrum uncertainty on
the number of independent measurements N and the integration time ~t. For a set
amount of total observing time T = N ~t, Eq. (6.75) is minimized for P = 1, an
rms signal-to-noise of unity. A conservative observing strategy would integrate until
p > 1, since this makes the estimator in Eq. (6.81) above more robust to mis-estimates

of the noise variance Cn. A plot of uncertainty vs. sample integration time is shown
in Fig. 6.5.
Power spectrum error estimates calculated using the above technique return
smaller uncertainties than using the maximum likelihood technique described below;
this is due at least partially to the fact that the band power uncertainties reported

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

109

above assume the other band powers are fixed, rather than effectively marginalizing
over them as is standard in the literature, and as we do in the maximum likelihood
analysis below.

6.6

The Maximum Likelihood Estimator

For a given dataset ~ and a (general) set of parameters" that we wish to estimate,
it is desirable to construct an estimator which has the minimum possible uncertainty,
and for many realizations of the dataset would return, on average, the true values
of the parameters. This class of estimator is called the Minimum Variance Unbiased
Estimator (MVUE). The maximum likelihood (ML) estimator, defined below, is in
common use because, at least in the limit of large datasets, it is a MVUE - no other
unbiased estimator has smaller uncertainties. In the discussion below, we draw on
Tegmark et al. (1997) for a concise review of MVUE's and the ML estimator in the
analysis of CMB datasets, and Gottschalk (1995), unfortunately unpublished, which
gives a precise and concise overview of statistic inference. A dense but definitive
reference is Stuart et al. (1999).
The likelihood function for a given dataset and set of theoretical parameters is
simply the joint PDF of the data ~ given the parameters ",
(6.104)

The Fisher information matrix (or simply Fisher matrix) , a function of the likelihood function, quantifies the amount of information the dataset contains about the
parameters, and is given by
(6.105)
The Fisher matrix is of fundamental importance because it is directly related to the
minimum possible variance an unbiased estimator of a parameter" can have, known

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

110

as the Cramer-Rao bound (see, e.g., Tegmark et al. 1997):
(6.106)

or, if all parameters are estimated simultaneously from the data,
(6.107)

The ML estimator asymptotically achieves the minimum possible variance in the
limit of large datasets. The ML estimator for a set of parameters K, is defined to be
the parameter values KML which maximize the likelihood function. If the data are
assumed to be Gaussian distributed , the likelihood function has the form
(6.108)
(6.109)

where C(K,) is the covariance matrix of Eq. (6.99), discussed above. We write the
likelihood £.o.(K,) as a function of K, for one given realization of the data a. In this
analysis we generally choose K, to be the band powers for a piecewise-flat power spectrum S(u). In practice, however, the parameters K, can be any theoretical parameters
on which the data covariance matrix depends. For example, in addition to the band
powers, we can also parameterize the temperature spectral index of the fluctuations,
j3, where T ex v l3

6.7

Iterative Quadratic Estimator

In this analysis, the N x N square covariance matrix C(K,) can have 0(10 4 ) rows, even
with the data compression technique described in §6.12 below. The matrix inversion

C-1 and determinant ICI operations require O(N3) operations and can be time consuming to calculate. It is therefore not feasible to directly evaluate Eq. (6.109) many
times, as would be required to locate K,ML and characterize the likelihood surface.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

6.7.1

111

Estimator Formalism

The iterative quadratic estimator algorithm proposed by Bond et al. (1998) cleverly
finds the peak and curvature of the likelihood function with only a small number of
required matrix inversions. The algorithm proceeds as follows:
1. Seed values of the parameters K, are chosen.
2. The slope and curvature of the log-likelihood function at the values K, are evaluated.
3. The likelihood function is assumed to be Gaussian with respect to the parameters K" and the increments OK, = KML - K, required to step to the peak of the
likelihood function are determined analytically from the slope and curvature of
the likelihood function.

4. Because the likelihood function is not Gaussian with respect to the parameters
K"

the increments OK, will move the parameters closer to, but will not precisely

attain, the ML value. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until OK, = 0 to within the desired
precision.
Once the ML parameters K,ML have been found, the curvature of the log-likelihood
at the maximum likelihood values KML is used to estimate the uncertainty in the
parameters, assuming that the likelihood function is Gaussian near its peak value.
The log-likelihood function is given by

InC = -~ [Nln(27r) + In(IC(K,)I) + ~TC(K,)-l~J.

(6.110)

Using various matrix identities, the slope and curvature of the log-likelihood may be
derived from Eq. (6.110) (Tegmark et al. 1997; Bond et al. 1998); the slope is given
by

(6.111)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

112

~Tr [(ddT - C)(C- 1C,pC- 1)J

(6.112)

~dTC-1C
C- 1 d - ~Tr [C C- 1J
,p
2'P

(6.113)

and the curvature is given by
(6.114)

BKpfJKp'

Tr [(ddT - C)(C - 1C ,p C- 1C ,p,C- 1 _ ~C-1C
,C- 1)]
,PP

+~Tr
[C- 1C ,p C- 1C ,p'J

(6.115)

d T (C- 1C,p C - 1C,p,C- 1 _ ~C-IC
,C- 1)d
,PP

-Tr [C,pC - 1C,p,C- 1 -

~C,pp'C-1]

+-Tr
2 [C- C ,p C - C ,p'J

(6.116)

where

BC
C,p == BK .

(6.117)

For parameters K which are piecewise-flat band powers,
(6.118)
which we have already calculated in order to assemble the theory covariance matrix

CT [Eq. (6.62)].
If the likelihood function, Eq. (6.109), is approximated as Gaussian with respect to

the parameters K, the function is completely characterized (aside from an irrelevant
constant offset) by the slope vector A and the curvature matrix F, and the steps
/jK

= K.ML - K required to move to the peak of the likelihood function may be derived

from the slope and curvature,
(6.119)
The likelihood equation is in general not Gaussian with respect to K, but successive
iterations will achieve the ML values K.ML, where the log-likelihood slopes A are zero.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

113

Once the peak of the likelihood function is found, the inverse of the curvature matrix
F gives the covariance matrix of the parameters, from which the uncertainties may

be estimated, assuming once again that the likelihood function is Gaussian near the
peak, usually a reasonably good assumption (see §6.9 for a treatment of non-Gaussian
uncertainties) .
As a substitute for the curvature matrix, the Fisher matrix, defined in Eq. (6.105)
as the expectation value of the curvature matrix, is easier to calculate:
Fpp'

(Fpp' )

(6.120)

~Tr
2 [C- C ,p C - C ,p,j.

(6.121)

The above equation strictly holds only for the true covariance matrix C(I<:o), which is a
function of parameters for which we do not have a priori knowledge, but substituting

C(k ML ) is the best we can do, with the estimated Fisher matrix F given by
(6.122)
which should be close to F if our assumptions about the Gaussian random nature of
the sky, and the properties of the instrument are accurate. The covariance matrix of
the parameters I<: is then estimated by
(6.123)
and the estimated variance on the individual estimators k MLp is
(6.124)
if we marginalize over all other parameters, and
(6.125)
if we fix the other parameters at their ML values. The marginalized uncertainties are
the ones commonly reported in the literature. Comparing Eq. (6.124) to the CramerRao bound, Eq. (6.107), it can be seen that the ML estimator in principle yields the

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

114

smallest possible uncertainties on the parameters. One should be cautioned, however,
that the ML estimator may be biased, especially for small datasets, and should be
checked with simulations.

6.7.2

Single Iteration Example

To understand how the ML iterative quadratic estimator is related to the simple
quadratic estimator discussed in §6.5, we can explore the simple case of a single band
power Sp, with a diagonal covariance matrix C. We start with a seed value Sp = S~.
Then,
CT(S~) + Cn

(6.126)

S~Bp + Cn,

(6.127)

which is assumed to be diagonal. The slope of the log-likelihood function, Eq. (6.113),
becomes
(6.128)
and the Fisher matrix, Eq. (6.121), becomes
Fpp

= 2"1 ~
~ [ C ii-2 B pii2] ,

(6.129)

so that, using Eq. (6.119),
(6.130)
(6.131)
(6.132)
(6.133)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

115

where
Wi

L:i [Cii2 Bp;il
(sg + Cnid B pJ-2
L:;(S2 + Cnid B pii )-2

(6.134)
(6.135)

can be interpreted to be a normalized weight matrix. The single iteration band-power
estimator is
(6.136)
(6.137)
and the Fisher matrix estimator is
(6.138)

(6.139)
Equations (6.137) and (6.139) are directly comparable to Eqs. (6.97) and (6.103) for
the simple quadratic estimator, with weight vector elements inversely proportional
to the expected total variance (signal and noise) of the seed band-power value sg.
Recalling Eq. (6.96), Wi is minimum variance weighting in the estimation of a band
power which is itself a variance.

6.8

Constraint Matrix Formalism

To reduce near-field ground contamination and point source contributions to the
power spectrum, we employ the constraint matrix formalism described in Bond et al.
(1998) to marginalize over potentially contaminated modes in the data. We do not
subtract ground components or point sources from the data. Instead we render the
analysis insensitive to these modes in the data using the method described below.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

116

If some contamination is present in the data, we represent it by adding a compo-

nent to the signal and noise components of the idealized datavector [Eq. (6.35)],
(6.140)
where a contaminated mode q is described by a shape vector T q , with the same size
as the datavector ~ , and Clmode. The covariance matrix of this datavector is then

(~~T) _ (~) (~T)

CT + Cn +

L [(Cl

(6.141)
(6.142)

qq'

(6.143)

CT+Cn+Cc
where

Cc ==

L [(Cl

(6.144)
qq'
is the constraint matrix, and we have assumed that sand n are uncorrelated with all

Clwhile we may have no a priori knowledge about the amplitude Clthis lack of knowledge by treating the amplitude Clmean, and variance which is very large compared to the expected signal and noise.
Then,

Cc =

L (Cl

(6.145)

qq'

or
(6.146)

if the modes are uncorrelated.

Inflating the variance of Cl

weighting the mode T q in the data. In practice, we insert for the variance (Cl<~) a
number large enough to de-weight the undesired mode without causing the covariance
matrix to become poorly conditioned (or, in the extreme case, singular). This is
equivalent to marginalizing over the unknown coefficients Cl

117

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

O, r-----------------~

••

"14

0~~2~4--6~~'~IO~172~
14~16~

Figure 6.6 Sample of the noise and constraint matrices for a subspace of the datavec-

tor consisting of two visibilities observed in each of 8 fields.
The datavector order is:
{vis a field 1, vis b field 1, vis a field 2, ... , vis b field 8}. The left panel depicts the non-zero
elements of the diagonal noise covariance matrix, without constraints. The center panel depicts two
co-added constraint matrices, constraining a common component across 8 fields for each of the 2 vis-

ibilities. The right panel depicts 8 co-added constraint matrices, constraining a foreground template
(such as dust, or point sources of known position), one template for each of the 8 fields.

For example, in the sub-space of the datavector consisting of a single visibility
observed in 8 fields, a template vector T q = [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 JT is used to constrain a
common mode with the same amplitude in all 8 fields. Any mode in the data which
can be described as a relative amplitude between data vector elements, as in the example above, can be constrained. We use this method to eliminate near-field ground
contamination in the field rows, and contributions from point sources with known
posi tions. For each point source we also use constraint matrices to marginalize over
arbitrary spectral indices, which we approximate as an amplitude slope across the
ten frequency bands. Sample constraint matrices are shown in Fig. 6.6, and a sample image of a dust map and the corresponding DASI visibility template are shown
in Fig. 6.7. This constraint matrix formalism has proven to be an extremely powerful tool for removing potentially contaminated components from the data, since it
requires no knowledge of the contaminant amplitude, only its shape in the datavector.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

118

RighI Ascension (arcl1'lin)

Figure 6.7 Sample dust map and dust template for one of the DASI fields (B3). The left panel
is an image from the cleaned IRAS 100 I"m survey map of Finkbeiner et al. (1999), projected in
orthographic coordinates centered on DASI field B3. The right panel is a synthesized image made
from a simulated observation by DASI of the image in the left panel. The (noiseless) simulated
visibility data are made into a template vector, which is used to constrain a possible foreground
component in the DASI data which fits the shape of the template. Color bar units of brightness are
arbitrary, but the same in the left and right panels.

6.9

Non-Gaussian Uncertainties

Using t he Fisher matrix to estimate uncertainties in the ML estimators KML, as in
Eqs. (6.124) and (6.125), assumes that the likelihood function is Gaussian in the
parameters K in the vicinity of KML,
(6.147)
where P = F-l is the covariance matrix for the parameters K, and is not itself dependent on K. However, in our previous simple example assuming a diagonal covariance
matrix, the estimated Fisher matrix, Eq. (6.139) is dependent on the band power
estimate S. As is pointed out by Bond et al. (2000), this is an indication that the
likelihood function is not Gaussian in the band power parameters S, and has some
bias.
It turns out that the ML estimator is, in general, biased. This is a consequence of

the fact that it is parameter invariant (Gottschalk 1995). If ,(K) are some different

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

119

set of parameters which are a function of the parameters K, then
(6.148)

which implies that
(6.149)

assuming 01qjOKp # O. If 1(K) is a non-linear function, it follows that either KML or
1ML is biased, since

(6.150)

The well-known solution (Gottschalk 1995) is to exploit the parameterization invariance of the ML estimator to refine the uncertainty estimates of Eqs. (6.124) and
(6.125) by finding a set of parameter estimators 1(ii:ML ) which are Gaussian dis-

tributed. Bounds on a given confidence region in the Gaussian parameters,
(6.151)

where a~ = JV [iML] are the I-a uncertainties in 1 , can then be associated with
bounds on the confidence region in K
(6.152)

assuming 1(K) is well behaved and invertible, with a possible change in sign depending
on the form of the function. This is valid since parameterization invariance guarantees
that the likelihood function will be the same fraction of its ML value, regardless of
the change of parameters.
Bond et al. (2000) propose a change in parameters based on the functional form
of the uncertainty under the assumption of an ideal all-sky experiment with uniform
pixel noise. We find the same functional form in the analysis of interferometry data
if we make the analogous simplifying assumptions for a power spectrum estimator

S in discrete bands: a diagonal covariance matrix (as was assumed in the example in §6.7.2), uniform noise, and a piece-wise flat power spectrum. The estimated

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

120

uncertainty becomes, using Eqs. (6.139) and (6.124),
,sp = Vf2
N ('
Sp + C
Bp )

(6.153)

[similar to Eq. (6.103) above]. Bond et al. (2000) suggest the change of parameters,
(6.154)
where
Xp =

(6.155)

is an estimate of the contribution of noise to the total uncertainty. The covariance
matrix for the new parameters is then
(6.156)
(6.157)
or equivalently,
(6.158)
where pS = (FS)-', p~ = (F~) - l are the covariance matrices of parameters Sand
,,/, respectively. The ratio Sp/x p is ratio of the signal and noise contributions to the
uncertainty in Eq. (6.153), and may be estimated by using Eq. (6.121) to calculate
the ratio of the Fisher matrix without signal to the Fisher matrix without noise,
(6.159)
where
(6.160)
and
(6.161)
Alternatively,
(6.162)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

where F is the full Fisher matrix of Eq. (6.121) (Bond et al. 2000).

121

Although

Eq. (6.162) only holds in the case of a diagonal covariance matrix with uniform
noise and a flat power spectrum S(u), we make these same assumptions to determine
the functional form of the uncertainty and the appropriate change of variables. In
practice we have found that calculating both FN and FT is not difficult, but for the
DASI data we use Eq. (6.162) to calculate xp since the calculation of FT requires
extra time.
Although a real experiment such as DASI does not obey the simplifying assumptions outlined above, Bond et al. (2000) find that this change of parameters, which
they call the offset log-normal formalism, works well for a variety of small datasets
for which they were able to compare the results to the true likelihood surface. It has
become the standard method in the CMB community for estimating non-Gaussian
uncertainties.

6.10

Band-Power Window Functions

Window functions, as given in Eqs. (6.43) and (6.44) , have been used in the literature
to describe experimental sensitivity as a function of multipole moment I (see, e.g.,
Coble et al. 1999). Knox (1999) points out that these variance window functions,
which are used to calculate the signal contribution to the data variance, are not
necessarily appropriate for calculating the expectation value of measured band powers
given an underlying power spectrum. Such a function, which Knox (1999) calls the
band-power window function, is needed to compare theory and measurement when

extracting cosmological parameters (see §6.11).
The band-power window function W B translates the underlying theoretical power
spectrum Cl into an expectation value for the band power measurement:
(6.163)

122

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

or in terms of the estimators S which measure band-powers S(u),

(Sp) = [ " du W:(U) S(u).

(6.164)

Following the derivation of the band-power window function in Knox (1999), we
require a simple quadratic expression for the band-power estimators SML, for which
we use simply the first iteration of the quadratic estimator introduced in §6.7 above.
In practice, the first iteration estimator is close to the ML estimator, and is in fact
a MVUE (Bond et al. 1998; Tegmark 1997). This band-power estimator for band p,
which we call S~, is calculated using Eqs. (6.119), (6.116) , and (6.113), starting with
a seed value S~:

S~ =

S~ +oSp

(6.165)

~2 '"
L...J (F-I) ppl Tr [(l!. T l!. - CN ) c-IeT,p C- ] )

(6.166)

where we have left the intervening steps, generalized from the simple example in
§6.7.2, as an exercise for the reader. Now, if we break each band p into sub-bands q,
sufficiently fine that we can assume S(u) is constant within each sub-band, then
(6.167)

CT,p= LCT,q
qEp
and

~Tr [C- L CT,qC- L CT,q,]

(6.168)

LLFqq,.

(6.169)

qEp

q'Epl

qEp q'Ep'

Then,

~ L (rl)pp' Tr [LSO(Uq)CT,qC- L CT,q,CI

(rl)pp' LSo(uq) L Fqq,

(6.170)

if~

(6.171)

q'Ep'

(6.172)

q'Ep'

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

123

and comparing with Eq. (6.164), we find
WB(U q ) = _1_" (F-l) " F ,
b.u L..J
pp' L..J qq

(6.173)

q'Ep'

where b.u q is the width of band q or, equivalently, for C[ [Eq. (6.163)],

-f- = L

(F - 1)pp'

F qq,.

(6.174)

q'Ep'

The above equations generalize the result given in Knox (1999) for a Fisher matrix
with significant off-diagonal elements. Note that the band-power window functions
are normalized, with a sum of unity. In practice, for the ML band-power estimators,
we start with the estimator values SML, calculate the Fisher matrix in four sub-bands,
and interpolate to find the window functions for all U or I. The band-power window
functions for the nine bands chosen for the DASI power spectrum analysis are shown
in Fig. 6.8. Unlike the variance window functions, shown in Fig. 6.4, the band-power
window functions are non-zero over the entire range in 1 to which DASI is sensitive.
This reflects the correlations between the different bands in the ML estimator.

6.11

Cosmological Parameter Estimation

In addition to estimating the angular power spectrum, we would like to estimate the
values of cosmological parameters such as the baryon density [lb, the cold dark matter
density [lcdm, the vacuum density [lA, and others. This can be done provided that
we can construct a theoretical power spectrum given a set of cosmological parameter
values. In large part, the present motivation for measuring the CMB angular power
spectrum is driven by the fact that the cosmology community has, in the past decade,
converged upon precision predictions for the theoretical angular power spectrum given
a set of cosmological parameters. For the past several years, numerical algorithms
such as cmbfast (Zaldarriaga & Seljak 2000) have been made freely available to the
community, and can generate theoretical power spectra in a matter of seconds. A grid

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

0.35

'5-

0.3

:::: 0.25
~:s: 0.2

124

'" 0.15
0::

.J:j
()

0::

0.1

0.05

til

I=Q -0.05

-0.1 LL_--'---'----'------'_.1..l...._L---'-_"------'--'----_ _--'---"---.J
200
400
600
800
1000
Multipole moment I
Figure 6.8 Band·power window functions for the nine DASI power spectrum bands (solid lines).
Dashed lines indicate the boundaries of the piecewise-flat bands for which the band-powers are
estimated. Unlike the variance window functions, the band-power window functions are non-zero
over the entire range in I to which DASI is sensitive. This reflects the correlations between the
different bands in the ML estimator.

of such theoretical models can be used to place constraints on cosmological parameters
given a measured angular power spectrum.
The maximum likelihood (ML) estimator can be used to estimate the cosmological
parameters. Using the band-power window functions, Eq. (6.163), to generate expectation values for band-power ML estimators SML given a theoretical power spectrum,
the likelihood function for the expectation values (SML) is given by

(27f)M/21P11/2

e- HSML- (SML))T p o l (SML-(SML))

(6.175)

where M is the number of band-powers. Since the likelihood function is assumed to

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

125

be Gaussian in the parameters (SML), the covariance matrix P is not dependent on

( SML ), and maximizing the likelihood function is equivalent to minimizing X2 ,
(6.176)
where we use the inverse of the estimated Fisher matrix, p-l for the parameter
covariance matrix P.
An overall calibration uncertainty, or a beam uncertainty, is not taken into account in our estimate of the Fisher matrix in §6.7. These uncertainties are usually
reported separately in the literature, and must be taken into account when estimating
cosmological parameters. If we have a multiplicative uncertainty, completely correlated between all band-powers, with relative weights, or shape, given by the vector
b, the band-power estimates are scaled

(6.177)
where SO is the estimator without calibration uncertainty and a is a calibration
uncertainty random variable with zero mean. The resulting covariance matrix is
(6.178)
(6.179)
where pO is the covariance estimate given by p-l
The change of variable introduced in §6.9 may be used to correct for the nonGaussian shape of the likelihood function, manifested here as a dependence of P on
the parameters S. The change of variables is

'Y;
'Y; -

xp)
In ( ( SMLp ) + xp)
In (SMLP +

(6.180)
(6.181)
(6.182)

and the X2 statistic is calculated as above,
(6.183)

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

126

Note that this X2 statistic is not rigorous; that is, even assuming "I; is derived
from the "true" underlying model, "I; -I ("I:) in general. This follows from the bias
argument, Eq. (6.150). Bond et al. (2000) take this X2 statistic, Eq. (6.183), as
an ansatz, and show empirically that it works well for various datasets. We adopt
this equation for our cosmological parameter estimation, the results of which are
summarized in Chapter 8.

6.12

Likelihood Analysis Implementation

The author has written an analysis package called dasipower to implement the maximum likelihood estimator for piece-wise flat band-powers described above. Three
general steps are required: preparation of the visibility datavector, calculation of the
theory and noise covariance matrix elements, and iterating the maximum likelihood
quadratic estimator of Bond et al. (1998), described in §6.7. The two-dimensional
integrations required to calculate the theory covariance matrix elements are executed
by code written in C; the datavector manipulations and iterated quadratic estimator
are implemented in matlab, which is well suited to the required matrix manipulations.
The package takes as input calibrated visibilities, averaged in 1-hr integrations, and
other associated data. The data reduction package required to bin and calibrate the
raw 8-s integrated visibilities, called dasi, was written by a colleague, E. Leitch.
Calculation of the theory covariance matrix elements is performed using the program covtheory, written by the author in C. The program calculates matrix elements

B pij by performing the overlap integral of the autocorrelation functions in band p
using a simple iterative two-dimensional Reimann sum. The rectangular limits of integration are chosen to bound closely the overlap area, which in general is an irregular
shape bounded by arcs (Fig. 6.9). We use an analytical expression for the theoretical
aperture field distribution, Eqs. (3.9) and (3.10), which closely matches the actual
horn performance (see §3.4.2). The two-dimensional autocorrelation function A(u, v),
shown in Fig. 6.2, is radially symmetric; it is evaluated numerically at ~ 50 points

127

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

L __

"'I

.,.

100

Figure 6.9 Sample area of integration for a theory covariance matrix element, B pij . The overlapping
circles represent the outer limits of the autocorrelation functions for the visibilities i and j; the
circles have different radii since the observing frequencies Vi and Vj differ for the sample element.
The concentric arcs represent the lower and upper limits of the band, u'p and Ukp. The rectangular
box is the area over which the numerical integration is performed.

in radius and stored in a lookup table. The program takes as input the filename of
a tab-delimited table with rows u, v, v of (u, v) coordinates and frequencies, and the
lower and upper (u, v) radii of the band p. Three additional optional input arguments
002 -

001,01,02 specify the separation in degrees RA and DEC of two fields if inter-

field covariance elements are desired. The output is a 4-column table i,j, Bi~/R, Bft,
with an additional two columns B:/I, B{jR if interfield covariance matrix elements
are being evaluated, since the RI I and I IR correlations are in general non-zero. The
theory covariance matrix for a single field is shown in Fig. 6.10.
We assume that the noise covariance matrix of the combined visibility data vector

128

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

500

1500 L -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ L_ _ _ _ _ =

500

1000

1500

Datavector index j

Figure 6.10 Theory covariance matrix non-zero elements for a single field. The upper and lower
block diagonal elements are the real and imaginary covariance matrices, C!)/;n and C~J, respectively.
In this plot, visibilities are sorted by (u,v) radius within each of the two blocks. The matrix is

11 % filled, and band diagonal, which may be taken advantage of to make matrix inversion faster.
However, interfield correlations and the addition of a constraint matrix, discussed in §6.8, add
non-zero elements and break the band-diagonal form, slowing inversion.

is diagonal, with elements Cni; =

a;; estimated from the sample variance in the

8.4-s integrations over the I-hr observations. To verify the assumption that Cn is
diagonal, we have calculated the sample covariance matrix from the data in each of
the ten frequency channels for alll-hr observations. We find rare occasions where the
visibilities are strongly correlated due to atmospheric fluctuations. Our weather edits,
described in Chapter 5, consist of cuts based on the strength of these correlations;
we cut observations in which the correlation coefficient exceeds 0.36, but the data
consistency does not depend strongly on this value. Consistency tests, discussed in

129

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

§7.4, show that this simple noise model is surprisingly accurate.
In our implementation of the ML iterated quadratic estimator of Bond et al.
(1998), we calculate the quantities C-IC,p and C-l.a., and use these to calculate the
log-likelihood slope A, Eq. (6.113), and the Fisher matrix F, Eq. (6.121). Typically,
only three iterations are needed to converge upon SML to within 1%. Because the
four sets of 8 fields have independent signal and noise, the covariance matrix is block
diagonal by field row, which allows us to manipulate the datavector and covariance
sub-matrices for the four field rows separately.

The datavector for a single field

row consists initially of 156 x 10 x 8 x M = 12,480M elements, where 156 is the
number of real and imaginary visibilities per band, 10 is the number of frequency
bands, 8 is the number of fields, and M is the number of 1-hr observations of the
field row, which ranges from 28 for the A row to 62 for the D row. Various cuts,
described in Chapter 5, are performed, and the observations are combined, resulting
in a combined datavector length < 12, 480. The covariance matrix for a datavector
of this length is quite cumbersome, occupying ~ 1.2 GB of memory, assuming a filled
matrix of double-precision floating point numbers, and takes about three hours to
invert on an Intel l Pentium III 800 MHz CPU running Matlab 2 version 5, the CPU
and matrix manipulation software used for the analysis. For each field row, the matrix
C-IC,p must be calculated for p band powers, and typically three iterations (this is

significantly faster than calculating C - I once and doing matrix multiplications for
each C,p), making the analysis prohibitively time consuming. Since the number of
operations required to invert a matrix of dimension N scales as O(N3), reducing the
dimension of the matrix by a factor of two results in an order of magnitude reduction
in time required for the analysis. We therefore compress the datavector by combining
visibilities from adjacent frequency bands, which are nearby in the (u, v) plane and
lIntel Corp., 2200 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95052-8119.
'The MathWorks, Inc., 3 Apple Hill Drive, Natick, MA 01760-2098.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

130

are therefore highly correlated. The combined datavector element is given by
~. _ I:IWil~il

L:l Wil

(6.184)

where ~il is the datavector for band I in baseline i, and Wi! is a weight vector. Then
the covariance matrix element for the combined datavector elements i and j is
(6.185)
Looking at Eq. (6.185) above as applied to the theory and noise covariance matrices,
we can see that if we combine two completely uncorrelated visibilities (say from points
far apart in the (u, v) plane) with equal weight, we will lose a factor of v'2 in sensitivity, defined above as y'CTidCnii' compared with combining completely correlated
visibilities. This represents a loss of information in compressing the data which we
wish to minimize. The effect of compression on the power spectrum uncertainties can
be assessed using simulated data. In practice, we are able to compress the field row
datavector length to ~ 4200 elements with negligible effect on the uncertainties. An
analysis consisting of three iterations on nine band-powers at this compression level
takes about two days, with each field row processed in parallel on a separate CPU. For
all but the final analysis run, we compress the field row datavector to ~ 2600 elements,
allowing a complete analysis in roughly ten hours using two dual-CPU machines.
The constraint matrix formalism discussed in §6.8 has proven to be an extremely
powerful tool for effectively removing contaminating effects in the data, ranging from
a ground signal component to point sources and possible diffuse foregrounds. Specific
modes removed from the data are discussed in Chapter 7. The resulting power spectrum is robust against the choice of large variance inserted as the pre-constant for
the constraint matrix in Eq. (6.146); the pre-constant may range over at least seven
orders of magnitude from the lower value at which it becomes effective to the upper
value at which the covariance matrix becomes poorly conditioned.
A limitation of the constraint matrix formalism is that, in order to preserve the
"shape" of the constraint template vector, data must be combined with uniform

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

131

weighting. Thus, in constraining a common ground component between 8 fields , the
N observations must all be combined with equal weight (rather than, say, weighting
by the inverse variance). When using data compression, as discussed above, a different problem results from failure to use uniform weighting - the resulting compressed
ground constraint matrices preserve their uncompressed rank, i.e., they constrain the
same number of degrees of freedom as the uncompressed constraint matrices, as they
must to keep track of the change in "shape" of the various ground constraints when
they are added with different weights. The result is that the compressed datavector can (and has, much to the author's consternation) become reduced to a length
less than the effective degrees of freedom constrained, which is a problem. Uniform
weighting in both the observation-combine and compression steps is the solution, and
therefore care must be taken to remove particularly noisy data beforehand. In practice, the DASI instrument noise is very stable, resulting in very little loss in sensitivity
due to uniform weighting of data as compared to inverse variance weighting.
The likelihood analysis software was extensively tested through analysis of simulated data, generated using independent software written by E. Leitch. The analysis
software reliably recovered the input theoretical model within the estimated uncertainty. Omitting the constraint matrix leaves a sparse covariance matrix which can
be rapidly inverted, and we can analyze a simulated data set in a few minutes of
CPU time. Through Monte Carlo studies of many simulated data sets we are able to
accurately recover the input power spectrum with mean uncertainties matching those
predicted by the likelihood analysis. Ground signal and point source constraints were
tested by constraining these modes in simulated data which contained both ground
and point source components; both ground signal and point sources are effectively
eliminated, and the constraint matrices do not introduce artifacts into the power
spectrum (Fig. 6.11).

132

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

psx3_20000926a
pSx4_20000924a
p.sx4_20000923a

9000 r------,-------.-------r-------r-------.------,-----~~·'~3~UOOO~~9~2~~

no point sources, no constraint matrix
..• point
sources, no constraint matrix

8000

point sources, constraint matrix

no point sources, constraint matrix
• model
power spectrum

7000

N~6000

;;-5000

~4000

:::.
- 3000
2000

1000

____ __
_ _- L_ _ _ _
__
_ _ _ _- L_ _
200
300
400
500
600
700
800

OL---~

100

~L-

900

Multipole moment I

Figure 6.11 Test of the analysis software using simulated data. The data simulates DASI observations of one realization of the sky generated from an input theoretical model (solid line), as well as
instrument noise and, optionally, point sources. Shown are the recovered power spectrum with (tri-

angles) and without (circles) added point sources. We test the effectiveness of constraint matrices in
removing the point source contribution (squares), and the effect of using the point source constraint
matrices on data where no point sources are present (diamonds). Data points are incrementally

offset to the right for display purposes. Direct comparison by eye of the simulated measurement
to the underlying theoretical power spectrum should be done with the caveat that the band-power
window functions, Fig. 6.4, and band-power covariance matrix are needed to quantitatively assess
consistency.

CHAPTER 6. ANALYSIS FORMALISM

6.13

133

Summary

We have successfully adapted the iterated maximum likelihood (ML) estimator techniques of Bond et al. (1998) and Bond et al. (2000), commonly used in the angular
power spectrum analysis of swept-beam type experiments, to the analysis of interferometry data. Unlike swept-beam experiments, no map-making step is required; the
angular power spectrum may be estimated directly from the visibility data. The theory covariance matrix elements, which describe how statistical fluctuations in the sky
brightness are manifested in the datavector, are straightforward to calculate (White
et al. 1999a,b; Hobson et al. 1995); only knowledge of the aperture field (or beam
pattern) and baseline vectors is required. A simple quadratic estimator constructed
from the square of the individual visibilities (White et al. 1999b) is fast, and useful for making sensitivity estimates, but the iterated ML estimator, although slower
because of the required matrix inversions, allows the use of a constraint matrix to effectively marginalize over potentially contaminated modes in the data. Although this
technique can be computationally prohibitive for large datavectors, the ability of the
DASI interferometer to make pointed observations on widely-separated (and therefore uncorrelated) fields on the sky makes the ML estimator computationally feasible
while allowing us to tailor the length and number of observations to achieve a given
science goal. CMB datasets are notoriously difficult to analyze due to the weakness
of the measured signal and the presence of potentially dominating systematic effects.
Despite the apparent complexity and sophistication of the techniques described above,
power spectrum analysis with interferometry data is relatively straightforward, allowing for rapid analysis and systematics checks even as data are being taken.

134

Chapter 7

Results

7.1

Introduction

In the first season of CMB observations with DASI, our goal was to make a precise
measurement of the CMB angular power spectrum in the multipole moment range
100 < I < 900, the region of the predicted first to third harmonic peaks in a fiat

Universe. The observations described in Chapter 5 were designed to achieve this goal;
we took measurements in 32 well separated fields on the sky, a strategy designed to
minimize sample variance and facilitate rapid analysis while allowing us to effectively
remove any ground signal. In the observations of the four rows of eight fields, observed
for 28-62 hr per field, we conservatively chose long integration times, which allowed
us to probe deeply for possible systematic effects, and produce a power spectrum
dominated by sky sample variance, rather than instrument noise, making the analysis
robust against possible mis-estimates of the noise. We have successfully extracted a
power spectrum, making detections in the nine bands with fractional uncertainties
of 10- 20%, and have extracted fundamental cosmological parameters from the power
spectrum measurements. These results were recently reported in Leitch et al. (2001),
Halverson et al. (2001), and Pryke et al. (2001). In this Chapter we report the power
spectrum results from Halverson et al. (2001), along with tests for consistency and
possible contamination by diffuse foregrounds. A discussion of the results, including
constraints on cosmological parameters, is reserved for Chapter 8.

135

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

7.2

Angular Power Spectrum Analysis

7.2.1

Analysis Formalism Summary

We apply the maximum likelihood analysis formalism described in Chapter 6 to measure the CMB angular power spectrum for a piecewise flat (1(1+1)C/) power spectrum
in nine bands, as well as its temperature spectral index. As input to the analysis, we
use the calibrated and edited DASI data discussed in Chapter 5, for 32 fields of observations. A datavector ~ of length N = 1560 x 32 (before data edits) is constructed
by combining observations of each visibility for each of the 32 fields. The likelihood
function for a set of parameters r;, is

La(r;,) =

exp(--~TC(r;,)-I~)
(27r)N/2IC(r;,)ll/2

(7.1)

where the covariance matrix

(7.2)
is the sum of the theory, noise, and constraint covariance matrices, and is a function of
the parameters. For the power spectrum analysis, the parameters r;, that we estimate
are the band powers, u2 S(u) ~ 1(1 + 1)Cd(27r)2. The theory covariance matrix, CT ,
is then given by

CT(r;,) == (yyT) =

I>pB p,

(7.3)

where Y is the vector of noiseless theoretical visibilities. The matrices

Bp represent

the instrument filter function to fluctuation power on the sky, Eq. 6.61. They are
constructed from the overlap integral of the aperture field autocorrelation functions of
pairs of baselines where they sample the same Fourier modes on the sky. We use the
theoretical aperture fields in this calculation, which is justified by the good agreement
between the theoretical and measured beams (§3.4.2). Fields are separated such that
the interfield datavector elements are essentially uncorrelated except in the highest
elevation row, for which we calculate the appropriate correlations.

136

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

7.2.2

Noise Estimation

We model the noise covariance matrix of the combined visibility datavector as diagonal, with elements C nii =

a; estimated from the sample variance in the 8.4-s

integrations over the 1-hr observations. To verify the assumption that Cn is diagonal,
we have calculated the sample covariance matrix from the data in each of the ten
frequency channels for all 1-hr observations. We find rare occasions where the visibilities are strongly correlated due to atmospheric fluctuations. Our weather edits,
described in §5.4, consist of cuts based on the strength of these correlations; we cut
observations in which any off-diagonal correlation coefficient exceeds ±O.36, but the
data consistency does not depend strongly on this value.

7.2.3

Ground Constraints

To reduce near-field ground contamination and point source contributions to the
power spectrum, we employ the constraint matrix formalism described in §6.8 to
marginalize over potentially contaminated modes in the data. Specifically, for a given
mode q, we construct a constraint matrix from the outer product of a template vector

T q,
CCq = TqT/

(7.4)

Cc =aL:CCq,

(7.5)

and

where a is a number large enough to de-weight the undesired modes without causing
the covariance matrix to become singular to working precision. In practice we are
able to vary a over seven orders of magnitude without affecting the results. To reduce sensitivity to the ground signal, we apply a constraint which marginalizes over
a common component across eight fields in a given observation for each visibility,
as described in the example in §6.8. Additionally, using sensitive consistency tests
described in §7.4, we find evidence of a temporally drifting component of the ground

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

137

signal on 1- to 8-hr time scales, subtle but present for all baselines and noticeably
stronger for short baselines. We therefore apply a linear drift constraint to all visibilities, and a quadratic constraint for lui < 40. The additional constraints have little
effect on the power spectrum, which makes us confident that sensitivity to ground
signal is effectively eliminated.

7.2.4

Point Source Constraints

As predicted for our experimental configuration (Tegmark & Efstathiou 1996), point
sources are the dominant foreground in the DASI data. To remove point source flux
contributions using the constraint matrix formalism above, we require only the positions of the sources, not their flux densities. We constrain 28 point sources detected
in the DASI data itself, in which we can detect a 40 mJy source at beam center with

> 4.5 CJ significance. The estimated point source flux densities range from 80 mJy
to 7.0 Jy (see Table 5.2). We also constrain point sources from the PMN southern
(PMNS) catalog (Wright et al. 1994) with 4.85 GHz flux densities, 8 5 , which exceed
50 mJy when multiplied by the DASI primary beam. We use this flux density limit
for the constrained point sources because the loss of degrees of freedom resulting from
the inclusion of all point sources in the PMNS catalog would be prohibitively large.
We have tested for the effect of possible absolute pointing error by displacing the
point source position templates. A uniform displacement of the PMNS catalog coordinates by less than or equal to our estimated pointing error of 2' (see §5.2) does not
have a significant effect on the angular power spectrum, except in the three highest-l
bins where the effect is ~ 10%. For the brightest point sources, positions accurate to

< I' are required. We can extract positions to the necessary accuracy from the DASI
data.
In addition to the point sources constrained above, we make a statistical correction
for residual point sources which are too faint to be detected by DASI or included in
our PMN source table. To do this, we estimate the point source number count per

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

138

unit flux density at 4.85 GHz, dN/dS5, derived from the PMNS catalog, and the
distribution of 31 GHz to 4.85 GHz flux density ratios, S3d S5, derived from new
observations for this purpose with the OVRO 40 m telescope in Ka band (paper
in preparation). We proceed to calculate the statistical correction for unconstrained
residual point sources S31 > 1 mJy using Monte Carlo techniques; we generate random
point source distributions at 4.85 G Hz using dN/ dS5 and statistically extrapolate
the flux density of each source to each of our ten frequency channels using S3d S5.
These simulated point sources are superimposed on eMB temperature fluctuations
and observed with DASI simulation software; a power spectrum is then generated
with the analysis software. The resulting mean amplitudes and uncertainties of the
residual point source contribution to the nine band powers are [20±70, 70±80, 90±70,
180 ± 70, 240 ± 80, 330 ± 100, 400 ± 100, 500 ± 170, 430 ± 170] J.lK2. The reported
uncertainties are due to sky sample variance of the point source population in the
simulations, uncertainty in dN/dS5, and uncertainty in S3dS5. The residual point
source contribution diminishes in the ninth band since that band power is dominated
by visibilities from the highest frequency channels where the average point source flux
density is lower relative to its mean flux density across all ten frequency channels.
We use these statistically estimated amplitudes and uncertainties to adjust our eMB
band-power estimates and uncertainties reported below.

7.3

Angular Power Spectrum Results

The eMB angular power spectrum from the first season of DASI data is shown
in Figure 7.1, with maximum likelihood estimates of nine band powers, piecewise
flat in 1(1 + 1)Cd(27r), spanning the range 100 < I < 900.

Adjacent bands are

anticorrelated at the 20% level. In addition, we show an alternate analysis of the
same data, for nine bands shifted to the right with respect to the original band
edges, in order to demonstrate the robustness of the analysis against possible effects
due to the anticorrelation of adjacent bands. Note that these two analyses use the

139

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

7000,------,-------,-------,-------,------,
6000

5000

Z;- 4000

>:
3000
......

2000

1000

200

400
600
Multipole moment I

800

1000

Figure 7.1 The angular power spectrum from the first season of DASI observations, plotted in
nine bands (filled circles). We have analyzed the same data in nine bands shifted to the right (open
circles). The alternate set of band powers is shown to demonstrate the robustness of the likelihood
analysis code. To extract cosmological parameters, only the nine bands shown in the primary (filled
circle) analysis are used. Adjacent bands are anticorrelated at the 20% level (see Table 7.2). In
addition to the uncertainties plotted above, there is an 8% calibration uncertainty in units of power
(4% in tJ.T/T), which is completely correlated across all bands due to the combined fiux scale and
beam uncertainties.

same data to estimate band powers in two different piecewise flat theoretical power
spectra; only the first nine-band analysis (filled circles) is used for the cosmological
parameter estimation. While increasing the number of bands above nine may in
principle provide more information about the underlying power spectrum, in practice
we find that increasing the number of bands does not improve our ability to constrain
cosmological parameters.
In a separate analysis, we fit for the maximum likelihood value of an additional

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

140

parameter, the temperature spectral index of the fluctuations, (3, where T ex v l3
Fitting a single spectral index for all nine bands, we find (3 = -0.1 ± 0.2 (1 (7), while
fitting a separate spectral index for I < 500 and I > 500 yields (3 = -0.2 ± 0.3 and
0.0 ± 0.4 respectively, indicating the fluctuation power is consistent with CMB.
Values and marginal uncertainties for the angular power spectrum in the primary
nine bands are given in Table 7.1. The center and e- l / 2 widths of the bands are
calculated using band-power window functions adapted from Knox (1999) which are
plotted in Paper III. These are the relevant window functions for calculating the
expectation value of the band power given a theoretical power spectrum. We give the
ratio of the uncertainty due to sky sample variance to the uncertainty due to noise,

(7./(7n, estimated using the offset log-normal formalism of Bond et al. (2000). In their
notation, (7./(7n is given by CB/XB, where C B is the band power estimate expressed
as 1(1 + 1)Ct/(27f) and XB is proportional to the instrument noise contribution to the
band-power uncertainty. These values may be used to estimate the non-Gaussianity
in the band-power marginal likelihood distributions for parameter estimation calculations - asymmetric uncertainties due to non-Gaussianity are negligible for most of
our band powers and we do not plot them here. We also tabulate the band-power
correlation matrix (Table 7.2) . All of the data products necessary for performing
cosmological parameter estimation from this data are available at our website l .

7.4

Consistency Tests

We perform three types of tests to check the consistency of the data: i) X2 tests
on the difference between two visibility datavectors constructed from observations
of the same fields on the sky, ii) construction of a nine-band power spectrum of
the epoch-differenced visibility datavector, to test for significant deviation from zero
power, and iii) X2 tests on the difference between two power spectra constructed from
independent fields on the sky. In the second and third types of test, we increase
lhttp://astro.uchicago.edu/dasi

141

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

leff

118
203
289
377
465
553
641
725
837

lib

lh b

as/an C 1(1 + I)CtEl-E2!(27r) (J1K 2)d

l(l + I)Ct!(27r) (/1,J{2)

104 167
173 255
261 342
342 418
418 500
506 594
600 676
676 757
763 864

23.6
31.6
18.7
7.3
4.3
4.0
2.3
1.7

3770 ± 820
5280 ± 550
3660 ± 340
1650 ± 200
1890 ± 220
2840 ± 290
1670 ± 270
2010 ± 350
2320±450

-250 ± 160
140 ± 120
120 ± 120
160 ± 140
70 ± 240
o ±300
120 ± 420
-90 ± 580
-490 ± 850

1.1

al eff is the band-power window function weighted mean multipole moment (see text).

bl, and Ih are the low and high e- 1 / 2 points of the band-power window function.
'a,ja n is the ratio of the uncertainty attributable to sky sample variance to the uncertainty attributable to noise (see text).
dPower spectrum of the epoch-differenced datavector described in §7.4.

Table 7.1 Angular power spectrum band powers and uncertainties. The uncertainties listed above do
not include flux scale and beam calibration uncertainties. The total combined calibration uncertainty
is 8% (1 a), expressed as a fractional uncertainty on the C, band powers (4% in t.TjT).

the number of frequency channels which are combined in the datavector in order to
reduce the computational time required to produce the power spectra. This increased
data compression yields a power spectrum similar to the one reported above.
Of the three types of test, the first is the most powerful tool for detecting nonGaussianity or incorrect estimates of the noise. The reduced X2 statistic is

(7.6)

-0.243

0.0349

6.87 x 10

- 0.182

0.0286

-0.196

1.09 X 10
-6.6lS X 10- 3
0.0372

-0.234

3.01 X 10 ..
3.90 X 10- 4

1.08 x 10 ..
- 1.00 X 10- 3

- S.84 X 10- 3

- 1.61 X 10- 3
- 0.0149
0.0247
- 0.210

0.0334
-0.193

1.24)(10"
-0.88 x 10- 4
-2.82 X 10- 3
- IU;2 x 10- 3

1.99 x 10 ..
-4.85 X 10- 4

-0.0193
0.0394
-0.275

-8.22 X 10- 3

-2.701 X 10 - 3

-6.69 X 10- 3

-0.0200
0.0339

- 0.220

Table 7.2 Correlation coefficient matrix for the DASI band powers given in Table 7.1.

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

142

where a l and a 2 are the two datavectors, Cnl and C n2 are the (diagonal) noise
covariance matrices, CCg is the same ground constraint matrix that is used in the
power spectrum likelihood analysis, and N = dim a - rank CCg are the degrees of
freedom. We split the visibilities between the two epochs of available observations for
each field row, yielding X2/ N = 1.03. This X2 value is significant given the N ~ 3 X 104
degrees of freedom -

it indicates that the noise may be slightly non-Gaussian. In

fact, we see improvement of this statistic if we increase the severity of the lunar
cuts, but the effect on the power spectrum is negligible. It may also indicate that
we slightly underestimate the noise of the data. However, the uncertainties in all
bands are dominated by sky sample variance, rather than instrument noise, making
the power spectrum robust against a noise underestimate of this magnitude.
A power spectrum in nine bands was created from the epoch-differenced datavector, and tested for deviation from zero power using a X2 statistic, with the result
X2 / N = 9.5/9, which is consistent within the 68% confidence interval. The band

powers for the epoch-differenced power spectrum are given in Table 7.1.
We use a X2 statistic to test the consistency between power spectra generated
from each of the four field rows, shown in Fig. 7.2. The X2 statistic is constructed
from the difference between two power spectra which sample independent sky, X2 =
(VI - V 2 )T(PI + P 2 )-I(V I - V 2 ), where VI, V 2 are the band-power vectors and PI, P2
are the band-power covariance (inverse Fisher) matrices. The non-Gaussianity of the
DASI power spectrum uncertainties is small, which justifies using a X2 statistic; we
have tested its validity with Monte Carlo techniques on simulated data and have
not found a significant deviation from a X2 distribution. The resulting values, with
format X2 / N (X2 cumulative distribution function percentile), are: 14.9/9 (91%),
13.3/9 (85%), 10.9/9 (72%), 4.5/9 (12%), 6.2/9 (28%) and 3.7/9 (7%) for the AB, A- C, A-D, B-C, B- D, C-D differenced field row pairs, respectively. The power
spectra of the four field rows are in reasonable agreement.
To test the efficacy of the point source constraints described in §7.2.4, we split

143

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

o Arow

8000

...

~ 6000

U-

"~~

4000
2000

~t~j ~

- - - ------- --- -- - --- -- -- ---

200

Brow
Crow
Draw

400
600
Muitipoie moment l

800

-- --

1000

Figure 7.2 The angular power spectrum of the four individual field rows , used for X' consistency
tests. The integration time for each field row is 28, 38, 56, and 62 hr per field for the A, B, C, and
D rows, respectively. The power spectra shown here are not corrected for the residual point source
contribution.

the data in each field row between the four fields with the highest and the four with
t he lowest detected point source flux , and create power spectra from the two sets of
combined fields. The x2 / N value for the difference between the two power spectra is
11.5/ 9 (75%) indicating they are consistent within the 68% confidence interval.
Although point sources are the foreground of primary concern for DASI, constraint
matrices are demonstrably effective in removing this point source power, and the
consistency tests above show that the power spectra from sets of fields with very
different point source flux contributions are in good agreement after the constraint
matrix is applied.

7.5

Diffuse Foregrounds

We place limits on the contribution of other diffuse foregrounds to t he power spectrum
by creating constraint matrices from foreground templates. The constraint matrix
formalism is a powerful technique to place limits on foregrounds with a known relative

CHAPTER 7. RESULTS

144

intensity distribution, since it allows for arbitrary scaling of the template amplitude
and spectral index, without knowledge of these quantities at microwave frequencies.
We create foreground images centered on each of the DASI fields from the cleaned
IRAS 100 fl-m maps of Finkbeiner et al. (1999), cleaned 408 MHz Haslam survey
maps (Haslam et al. 1981; Finkbeiner 2001), and Ha maps (Gaustad et al. 2000;
McCullough 2001). These images are converted to visibility template vectors with
the DASI simulation software. We marginalize over modes in the data which match
the templates using the constraint matrix formalism described in §6.8. We constrain
a separate arbitrary template amplitude and spectral index for each DASI field. With
the addition of all of these foreground constraints, the maximum change in a band
power is 3.3%, with most bands changing by less than 1%.
The Haslam map has a resolution of ~ 10 , making it inadequate as a template
for multipole moments ~ 200; however, the power spectrum of synchrotron emission
is expected to decrease with I (Tegmark & Efstathiou 1996). Also, the Ha images
show very low emission in the region of the DASI fields, and are of questionable use
as a template. As a second method of characterizing possible free-free emission, we
convert the Ha images to brightness temperature at our frequencies assuming a gas
temperature of 104 K (Kulkarni & Heiles 1988). Subsequent power spectrum analysis
of the converted image visibility templates yields a < 1% contribution to our band
powers in all bands.
We conclude that dust, free-free, and synchrotron emission, as well as emission
with any spectral index that is correlated with these templates, such as spinning dust
grain emission (Draine & Lazarian 1998), make a negligible contribution to the CMB
power spectrum presented here.

145

Chapter 8

ConcI us ions
In its initial season, the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer has successfully measured the angular power spectrum of the CMB over the range I = 100- 900 in nine
bands with high precision. The interferometer provides a simple and direct measurement of t he power spectrum, with systematic effects, calibration methods, and beam
uncertainties which are very different from single-dish experiments. We have made
extensive use of constraint matrices in the analysis as a simple method for projecting
out undesired signals in the data, including ground-signal common modes and point
sources with arbitrary spectral index. T he constraint matrix formalism is also used
as a powerful test of correlations with foreground templates having arbitrary flux and
spectral index scaling; we find no evidence of diffuse foregrounds in the data.
We see strong evidence for both first and second peaks in t he angular power
spectrum at I ~ 200 and I ~ 550, respectively, and a rise in power at I ~ 800 that
is suggestive of a third. The detection of harmonic peaks in the power spectrum is
a resounding confirmation that sub-degree scale anisotropy in the CMB is the result
of gravitationally driven acoustic oscillations seeded by primordial adiabatic density
perturbations.
Within the context of standard cosmological models, we can use the DASI angular
power spectrum results to place quantitative constraints on fundamental cosmological
parameters. As discussed in Chapter 1, the theoretical angular power spectrum is
dependent upon cosmological parameters such as the density of baryons [lb, cold

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

146

dark matter density !lcdm, vacuum energy density !lA , the Hubble parameter h, the
spatial spectral index of the primordial fluctuations n" and the optical depth due
to reionization Tc, among others. The total matter density is !lm == !lb + !lcdm and
the total density is !ltot == !lm + !lA, where all density parameters !li are given as
ratios with respect to the critical density, for which the Universe is spatially flat.
The models which we use assume there are no significant tensor perturbations due to
gravity waves and no "hot" dark matter component such as massive neutrinos, since
these are thought to be unlikely to contribute to the CMB angular power spectrum
at a significant level compared with the DASI measurement uncertainties (Lyth 1997;
Dodelson et al. 1996). We can compare theoretical power spectra which depend on
the above cosmological parameters to the DASI measured power spectrum shown in
Fig. 7.1 using the X2 statistic discussed in §6.11, and place constraints on cosmological
parameters. We calculate theoretical power spectra using cmbfast (Zaldarriaga &
Seljak 2000) on a seven-dimensional grid over the parameters (!ltot, !lLl., !lbh2, !lcdmh2,
Tc, n" CIO)' where !lLl. = !lm - !lA and C IO is an overall normalization constant. In

addition, we use I ::; 25 band-power measurements from the COBE-DMR satellite
experiment (Bennett et al. 1996), as provided in the RADPACK distribution (Knox
2000; Bond et al. 2000) to constrain the power spectrum at low multipole moments.
Details of the cosmological parameter estimation are given in Pryke et al. (2001); the
results of that paper are summarized here.
We find both the simultaneous maximum likelihood (minimum X2) value for all
seven cosmological parameters, as well as marginal distributions for each of the parameters. The peak of the seven-dimensional likelihood surface lies at the parameter
values (!lm, !lA, !lbh2, !lcdmh2, Tc, n" C IO ) =

(0.725,0.325,0.020,0.15,0.0,0.95,800),

equivalently (!lb, !lcdm, !lA, Tc, n" h) = (0.09,0.64,0.33,0,0.95,0.48), with X2 = 29.5
for the 9 DASI plus 24 DMR band-powers which indicates the model has a reasonable
fit to the data, if we assume seven degrees of freedom or less taken away by the parameters. This "best fit" power spectrum is shown in Fig. 8.1, along with the "median"

147

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

7000
6000

5000

::i.

';S- 4000

--......+ 3000

2000

1000 00

200

400

600

800

1000

Multipole moment I

Figure 8.1 The DASI first-season angular power spectrum in nine bands (filled circles) with
The DMR data are shown compressed to the single lowest-l point
cosmological models.
(open square).
The solid (red) line is the best fitting model which falls on our grid,
(flm,flA,flbh2,flodmh2,T"n"ClO) = (0.725,0.325,0.020,0.15,0.0,0.95,800) , while the dashed
(green) shows the model using the median values of the individually marginalized parameters with
the priors 0.0::; To::; 0.4 and h ~ 0.45 (see Table 8.1).

model from the individually marginalized constraints described below. Because of a
degeneracy between Om and OA , this best fit model is not particularly meaningful,
but it demonstrates that there are models within the model grid which are good fits
to the data.
We break this degeneracy in the marginal constraints by invoking priors in the
Hubble parameter, both a weak prior, h :::: 0.45, and a strong prior, h = 0.72 ± 0.08,
from the HST Key project (Freedman et al. 2001). Figure 8.2 shows the marginal
likelihood distributions for the implicit priors (0'0' ::; 1.3, O~ ::; 3.4,0.0 ::; Tc ::; 0.4)

148

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

0 .'

0.'

0 ..

0.'

-Q

0.'

0 .'

0.'

to>

0.'

0.2

0.3

odm

0."

0.'

0 .'

0. '

,", "

o. o.

Figure 8.2 Cosmological parameter marginal likelihood distributions for each parameter on the
model grid. The three sets of lines show the effect of varying the prior on the Hubble parameter h.
The dotted (blue) lines use no h prior, the solid (black) lines use a weak prior, h > 0.45, and the
dashed (red) lines use a strong prior, h = 0.72 ± 0.08. The panel for the parameter Obh2also shows
the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) constraint as a (green) shaded region (see text). All curves are
normalized to a peak height of unity, and are spline interpolations of the actual model grid values
shown by the points.

imposed by our grid boundaries, as well as the weak and strong h priors. The power
to constrain Otot and 0", is almost wholly dependent on the strength of the h prior,
whereas all other parameters are barely affected by the choice of h prior. When the
weak h prior is invoked, the model grid encompasses the significant likelihood region
in all parameters but the optical depth due to reionization, Te. Table 8.1 summarizes
parameter confidence intervals, assuming the weak h prior and 0.0 ~ Te ~ 0.4, but
excludes 0", since our constraint on this parameter depends wholly on the h prior.
The prior on Te imposed by the choice of grid boundary is significant, and until
very recently, Tc has not been a well known parameter. Our external knowledge of
Te is derived from searches for the Gunn-Peterson effect in the line of sight to high-

redshift quasars, and theoretical considerations of structure formation and energy
emission in the early Universe, which indicate 0.02 ~ Te ~ 0.4 (Haiman & Knox

149

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

Parameter
n tDt
nb h2
n cdm h 2
n,

ClO

2.5%
0.927
0.0156
0.075
0.901
558

16%
0.986
0.0187
0.100
0.949
642

50%
1.045
0.0220
0.137
1.010
741

84%
1.103
0.0255
0.175
1.092
852

97.5%
1.150
0.0292
0.225
1.166
973

mode
1.047
0.0220
0.135
0.993
728

Table 8.1 Cosmological parameter constraints from DASI+DMR data for a seven-dimensional grid,
assuming the weak prior h > 0.45 and 0.0 S Tc S 0.4. Tabulated are percentiles on the marginal
cumulative distribution functions, as well as the mode (maximum likeliood value).

1999), making our prior 0.0 S; 7c S; 0.4 reasonable. Very recently (a few weeks ago!),
new results were reported in which the Gunn-Peterson effect was observed toward a

z = 6.28 quasar discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), yielding for the
first time strong evidence for reionization at a redshift z ~ 6 (Becker et al. 2001). If
this result is confirmed, the optical depth due to reionization is 7c ~ 0.02, a boon to
CMB observers, since it indicates negligible scattering of the CMB photons due to
reionization. In Fig. 8.3 we show the effect of setting 7c = 0; the primary effect is on
our estimation of n" which is expected due to the degeneracy of these parameters,
both of which produce tilts in the power spectrum.
The DASI power spectrum and associated cosmological parameter constraints confirm key predictions of inflation. The DASI detection of the predicted harmonic peaks
in the CMB angular power spectrum confirms the presence of primordial adiabatic
density perturbations, which rise naturally in inflationary theories. The DASI constraints on the total density, OtD' = 1.04 ± 0.06, and on the spatial spectral index
of the primordial fluctuations n, = 1.01~~:~~ (both assuming the conservative priors
0.0 S; 7 c S; 0.4 and h ::::: 45) are remarkably consistent with a spatially flat Universe
and with scale invariant primordial density fluctuations predicted by non-baroque
inflationary theories. (All DASI constraints reported here are with 68% confidence
limits.) The implications of inflation are astounding; our Universe is many times
more vast than the visible Universe with which we are causally connected.

150

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

0.'

0 .'

0.'

0.0

0.'

0.'
0.'
0 .0

-Q

o. ~

lot

t1: .

i t

\,
0.'

0.0

0.'

Q"'m

··
··

0.'
0 .'
0.0
0 .'
0 .'

,,
0.'

0.'

0 .'

C'O

Figure 8.3 Marginal likelihood distributions when varying the prior on T,. The solid (black) lines
are the same as in Fig. 8.2 and assume 0.0 ~ T, ~ 0.4, while for the dashed (red) lines T, = 0.0. All
curve!-; a!;;sume the weak prior h > 0.45.

The DASI results also place stringent limits on the densities of the various components which constitute the Universe. The DASI results provide a measurement
of the matter content of the Universe which is independent of, but in excellent
agreement with, a host of previous measurements probing entirely different epochs and physical processes. The DASI constraint on the baryonic matter density
rlbh2 = 0.022~g:gg~ (assuming the same conservative priors) is consistent with the

constraint, rlbh2 = 0.020 ± 0.002 (95% confidence limits), set by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) theory in conjunction with the primordial Deuterium-Hydrogen ratio
as measured in adsorption along the line of sight to high-redshift quasars (Buries
et al. 2001). The DASI results, along with a new analysis of the BOOMERanG data
(Netterfield et al. 2001,

see Fig.8.4), provide constraints which are in very good

agreement with the BBN value. This agreement beautifully links together two pillars
of the Big Bang theory, and buttresses our understanding of the early Universe as it
evolved from the the epoch of nucleosynthesis in the first few minutes after creation
to the generation of the CMB some 400,000 years later.

151

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

8000~--~~--~----~----~----~-----,

• DASI2001
o BOOMERanG 2001
... MAXIMA 2001

7000
6000
<'<~

~5000
U[24000

+3000

:::::(

2000
1000
OL-----~--~~--~----~----~L---L-

200

400
600
800
Mu1tipo1e moment l

1000

1200

Figure 8.4 The DASI power spectrum, shown with new analyses of the BOOMERanG (Netterfield
et al. 2001) and MAXIMA-1 (Lee et al. 2001) data, all three released at the April 2001 American
Physical Society meeting in Washington, DC. Beam and calibration uncertainties are not shown.

The DASI constraint on the dark matter content of the Universe, flcdmh2 = 0.14±
0.04 (again with priors 0.0 :':: Tc :':: 0.4 and h ;::: 0.45), agrees well with strong evidence
for non-baryonic matter in the Universe indicated by a variety of previous observations
and theoretical arguments (e.g., see review by Turner 1999, and references therein).
As an example, recent measurements of the gas mass fraction in clusters of galaxies
in combination with BBN constraints for the baryon density place an upper limit

flm ;S 0.4, with an intracluster gas mass fraction of ~ 0.1 (Mohr et al. 1999; Grego
et al. 2001). Since the intracluster gas is believed to comprise the vast majority of
baryonic matter in the clusters, this upper limit is roughly an equality (flm ~ 0.25),
with the majority of matter non-baryonic.

In adiabatic inflationary models, the

CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS

152

amplitude ratio of the first to higher-order peaks at I ~ 103 in the CMB angular
power spectrum yields an estimate of the total matter content of the Universe (White
2001). In the DASI power spectrum, the rise in power in the region of the predicted
third peak strongly supports, from CMB data alone, the presence of dark matter in
the Universe.
Finally, "dark energy," modeled as vacuum energy, is confirmed by the DASI
data. The vacuum energy, indistinguishable from Einstein's cosmological constant,
A, was most recent resurrected in the mid-1990 's in "concordance" models as a way
to bridge the gap between the evidence for low matter content in the Universe and a
strong theoretical prejudice for a spatially flat Universe arising from inflation theory
(Ostriker & Steinhardt 1995; Krauss & Turner 1995). Measurements of the Hubble
constant from observations of high-redshift type Ia supernovae revealed the Universe
is accelerating, providing strong evidence for dark energy, assuming a flat Universe,
Om +OA = 1 (Perlmutter et al. 1999; Riess et al. 1998). CMB data provide constraint

ellipses in the Om- OA plane which are orthogonal to those provided by the supernovae
data. The DASI data constrain OtDt = 1.00 ± 0.04, Om = 0.40 ± 0.15, and OA =
0.60±0.15, assuming a strong Hubble parameter prior, h = 0.72±0.08, in remarkable
agreement with concordance models and intersecting constraints from high-redshift
supernovae observations.
With evidence from a diverse set of measurements probing entirely different epochs in cosmological history, a consistent story has emerged about the makeup of the
Universe, at the same time verifying to a remarkable degree the hot Big Bang cosmology with inflationary origins. While some may be disappointed at the apparent
lack of controversy, there are many questions yet to be answered; we have very little
understanding of the matter and energy that comprise 95% of the energy density of
the Universe. We can be proud of the recent achievements in our understandings of
the origins of the Universe, but at the same time they reveal that our still nascent
awareness of the cosmos has only just begun.

153

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