Multiple methods for estimating the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background with application to the MAXIMA data

被引:45
作者
Santos, MG [1 ]
Heavens, A
Balbi, A
Borrill, J
Ferreira, PG
Hanany, S
Jaffe, AH
Lee, AT
Rabii, B
Richards, PL
Smoot, GF
Stompor, R
Winant, CD
Wu, JHP
机构
[1] Univ Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, England
[2] Univ Calif Davis, Dept Phys, Davis, CA 95616 USA
[3] Univ Edinburgh, Astron Inst, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, Midlothian, Scotland
[4] Univ Roma Tor Vergata, Dipartimento Fis, I-00133 Rome, Italy
[5] Univ Calif Berkeley, Ctr Particle Astrophys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[6] Lawrence Berkeley Natl Lab, Natl Energy Res Sci Comp Ctr, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[7] Univ Calif Berkeley, Space Sci Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[8] Univ Minnesota, Sch Phys & Astron, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA
[9] Univ London Imperial Coll Sci Technol & Med, Astrophys Grp, Blackett Lab, London SW7 2BW, England
[10] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[11] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Astron, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[12] Natl Taiwan Univ, Dept Phys, Taipei 106, Taiwan
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
methods : data analysis; methods : statistical; cosmic microwave background; early Universe;
D O I
10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06438.x
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
We describe different methods for estimating the bispectrum of cosmic microwave background data. In particular, we construct a minimum-variance estimator for the flat-sky limit and compare results with previously studied frequentist methods. Application to the MAXIMA data set shows consistency with primordial Gaussianity. Weak quadratic non-Gaussianity is characterized by a tunable parameter f (NL) , corresponding to non-Gaussianity at a level of similar to10(-5) f (NL) (the ratio of non-Gaussian to Gaussian terms), and we find limits of f (NL) = 1500 +/- 950 for the minimum-variance estimator and f (NL) = 2700 +/- 1650 for the usual frequentist estimator. These are the tightest limits on primordial non-Gaussianity, which include the full effects of the radiation transfer function.
引用
收藏
页码:623 / 643
页数:21
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