Journal article
S-band Polarization All-Sky Survey (S-PASS): survey description and maps
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.489(2), pp.2330-2354
10/21/2019
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz806
Abstract
We present the S-Band Polarization All Sky Survey (S-PASS), a survey of polarized radio emission over the southern sky at Dec. <-1 degrees taken with the Parkes radio telescope at 2.3 GHz. The main aim was to observe at a frequency high enough to avoid strong depolarization at intermediate Galactic latitudes (still present at 1.4 GHz) to study Galactic magnetism, but low enough to retain ample signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) at high latitudes for extragalactic and cosmological science. We developed a new scanning strategy based on long azimuth scans and a corresponding map-making procedure to make recovery of the overall mean signal of Stokes Q and U possible, a long-standing problem with polarization observations. We describe the scanning strategy, map-making procedure and validation tests. The overall mean signal is recovered with a precision better than 0.5 per cent. The maps have a mean sensitivity of 0.81 mK on beam-size scales and show clear polarized signals, typically to within a few degrees of the Galactic plane, with ample S/N everywhere (the typical signal in low-emission regions is 13 mK and 98.6 per cent of pixels have S/N > 3). The largest depolarization areas are in the inner Galaxy, associated with the Sagittarius Arm. We have also computed a rotation measure map combining S-PASS with archival data from theWilkinsonMicrowave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck experiments. A Stokes I map has been generated, with sensitivity limited to the confusion level of 9 mK.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- S-band Polarization All-Sky Survey (S-PASS): survey description and maps
- Creators
- E. Carretti - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationM. Haverkorn - Radboud University NijmegenL. Staveley-Smith - International Centre for Radio Astronomy ResearchG. Bernardi - Rhodes UniversityB. M. Gaensler - Canadian Institute for Theoretical AstrophysicsM. J. Kesteven - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationS. Poppi - Osservatorio Astronomico di CagliariS. Brown - University of IowaR. M. Crocker - Australian National UniversityC. Purcell - Macquarie UniversityD. H. F. M. Schnitzler - Bendenweg 51, 53121 Bonn, GermanyX. Sun - Yunnan University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.489(2), pp.2330-2354
- Publisher
- Oxford Univ Press
- DOI
- 10.1093/mnras/stz806
- ISSN
- 0035-8711
- eISSN
- 1365-2966
- Number of pages
- 25
- Grant note
- 11763008 / National Natural Science Foundation of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) ACI-1440620 / National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF) FT110100108 / Australian Research Council NCC5-626 / National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Science Technology Office, Computation Technologies Project University of Toronto US National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF) Commonwealth of Australia; Australian Government RGPIN-2015-05948 / Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) ASI I/016/07/0 / ASI; Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) 772663 / European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; European Research Council (ERC) David Dunlap family Canada Research Chairs program; Canada Research Chairs
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/21/2019
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984428828002771
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