HEASARC Browse: List of WMAP Catalogs

List of WMAP Catalogs

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is designed to produce all-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. The WMAP 9-Year CMB-Free Point Source Catalog contained herein has information on 502 point sources in three frequency bands (41, 61 and 94 GHz, also known as the Q, V, and W bands, respectively) based on data from the entire 9 years of the WMAP sky survey from 10 Aug 2001 0:00 UT to 10 Aug 2010 0:00 UT, inclusive.

The CMB-free method of point source identification was originally applied to one-year and three-year V- and W-band maps by Chen & Wright (2008, ApJ, 681, 747) and to five-year V- and W-band maps by Wright et al. (2009, ApJS, 180, 283). The method used here is that applied to five-year Q-, V-, and W-band maps by Chen & Wright (2009, ApJ, 694, 222) and to seven-year Q-, V-, and W-band maps by Gold et al. (2011, ApJS, 192, 15). The V- and W-band maps are smoothed to Q-band resolution. An internal linear combination (ILC) map (see Section 5.3.3 of the reference paper) is then formed from the three maps using weights such that CMB fluctuations are removed, flat-spectrum point sources are retained with fluxes normalized to Q-band, and the variance of the ILC map is minimized. The ILC map is filtered to reduce noise and suppress large angular scale structure. Peaks in the filtered map that are > 5 sigma and outside of the nine-year point source catalog mask are identified as point sources, and source positions are obtained by fitting the beam profile plus a baseline to the filtered map for each source. For the nine- year analysis, the position of the brightest pixel is adopted instead of the fit position in rare instances where they differ by > 0.1 degrees. Source fluxes are estimated by integrating the Q, V, and W temperature maps within 1.25 degrees of each source position, with a weighting function to enhance the contrast of the point source relative to background fluctuations, and applying a correction for Eddington bias due to noise (sometimes called "deboosting").

The authors identify possible 5-GHz counterparts to the WMAP sources found by cross-correlating with the GB6 (Gregory et al. 1996, ApJS, 103, 427), PMN (Griffith et al. 1994, ApJS, 90, 179; Griffith et al. 1995, ApJS, 97, 347; Wright et al. 1994, ApJS, 94, 111; Wright et al. 1996, ApJS, 103, 145), Kuehr et al. (1981, A&AS, 45, 367), and Healey et al. (2009, AJ, 138, 1032) catalogs. A 5-GHz source is identified as a counterpart if it lies within 11 arcminutes of the WMAP source position (the mean WMAP source position uncertainty is 4 arcminutes). When two or more 5 GHz sources are within 11 arcminutes, the brightest is assumed to be the counterpart and a multiple identification flag is entered in the catalog.

A separate 9-year Point Source Catalog (available in Browse as the WMAPPTSRC table) has information on 501 point sources in five frequency bands from 23 to 94 GHz that were found using an alternative method. The two catalogs have 387 sources in common. As noted by Gold et al. (2011, ApJS, 192, 15), differences in the source populations detected by the two search methods are largely caused by Eddington bias in the five-band source detections due to CMB fluctuations and noise. At low flux levels, the five-band method tends to detect point sources located on positive CMB fluctuations and to overestimate their fluxes, and it tends to miss sources located in negative CMB fluctuations. Other point source detection methods have been applied to WMAP data and have identified sources not found by our methods (e.g., Scodeller et al. (2012, ApJ, 753, 27); Lanz (2012, ADASS 7); Ramos et al. (2011, A&A, 528, A75), and references therein).

For more details of how the point source catalogs were constructed, see Section 5.2.2 of the reference paper.

WMAPITNPTS Catalog

The authors have developed a new needlet-based method to detect point sources in cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps and have applied it to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 7-year data. They use both the individual frequency channels as well as internal templates, the latter being the difference between pairs of frequency channels and hence having the advantage that the CMB component is eliminated. Using the area of the sky outside the Kq85 galactic mask, they detect a total of 2102 point sources at the 5-sigma level in either the frequency maps or the internal templates. Of these, 1116 are detected either at 5 sigma directly in the frequency channels or at 5 sigma in the internal templates and >= 3 sigma at the corresponding position in the frequency channels. Of the 1116 sources, 603 are detections that have not been reported so far in WMAP data. The authors have made a catalog of these sources available with position and flux estimated in the WMAP channels where they are seen. In total, they identified 1029 of the 1116 sources with counterparts at 5 GHz and 69 at other frequencies.

WMAPPTSRC Catalog

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is designed to produce all-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. The WMAP 9-Year Point Source Catalog contained herein has information on point sources in five frequency bands from 23 to 94 GHz, based on data from the entire 9 years of the WMAP sky survey from 10 Aug 2001 0:00 UT to 10 Aug 2010 0:00 UT, inclusive. The 5-band search technique used in the first-year, 3-year, 5-year and 7-year analyses now finds 501 point sources, compared to 471 point sources found in the 7-year analysis and 390 sources found in the 5-year analysis.

The 5-band search method is largely unchanged from the 7-year analysis (Gold et al. 2011, ApJS, 192, 15). This method searches for point sources in each of the five WMAP wavelength bands. The nine-year signal-to-noise ratio map in each band is filtered in harmonic space by b_l/[(b_l)² C_l(cmb) + C_l(noise)], where b_l is the transfer function of the WMAP beam response, C_l(cmb) is the CMB angular power spectrum, and C_l(noise) is the noise power. The filtering suppresses CMB and Galactic foreground fluctuations relative to point sources. For each peak in the filtered maps that is > 5 sigma in any band, the unfiltered temperature map in each band is fit with the sum of a planar base level and a beam template formed by convolving an azimuthally symmetrized beam profile with a skymap pixel. (This method was previously used by Weiland et al. (2011, ApJS, 192, 19) for selected celestial calibration sources and is more accurate than the Gaussian fitting that was used for the seven-year and earlier point source analyses). The peak temperature from each beam template fit is converted to a source flux density using the conversion factor Gamma given in Table 3 of the reference paper. The flux density uncertainty is calculated from the 1-sigma uncertainty in the peak temperature, and does not include any additional uncertainty due to Eddington bias. Flux density values are entered into the catalog for bands where they exceed 2 sigma and where the source width from an initial Gaussian fit is within a factor of two of the beam width. A point source catalog mask is used to exclude sources in the Galactic plane and Magellanic cloud regions. This mask has changed from the seven-year analysis in accordance with changes in the KQ85 temperature analysis mask. A map pixel is outside of the nine-year point source catalog mask if it is either outside of the diffuse component of the nine-year KQ85 temperature analysis mask or outside of the seven-year point source catalog mask. The present mask admits 83% of the sky, compared to 82% and 78% for the previous 7-year and 5-year versions, respectively.

A separate 9-year CMB-free Point Source Catalog (available in Browse as the WMAPCMBFPS table) has information on point sources in three frequency bands from 41 to 94 GHz: the CMB-free method identified 502 point sources in a linear combination map formed from 41, 61 and 94 GHz band maps using weights such that CMB fluctuations are removed and flat-spectrum point sources are retained. The two catalogs have 387 sources in common. As noted by Gold et al. (2011, ApJS, 192, 15), differences in the source populations detected by the two search methods are largely caused by Eddington bias in the five-band source detections due to CMB fluctuations and noise. At low flux levels, the five-band method tends to detect point sources located on positive CMB fluctuations and to overestimate their fluxes, and it tends to miss sources located in negative CMB fluctuations. Other point source detection methods have been applied to WMAP data and have identified sources not found by our methods (e.g., Scodeller et al. (2012, ApJ, 753, 27); Lanz (2012, ADASS 7); Ramos et al. (2011, A&A, 528, A75), and references therein).

For more details of how the point source catalogs were constructed, see Section 5.2.2 of the reference paper.

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