Making Maps Of The Cosmic Microwave Background: The MAXIMA Example

Abstract

This work describes Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data analysis algorithms and their implementations, developed to produce a pixelized map of the sky and a corresponding pixel-pixel noise correlation matrix from time ordered data for a CMB mapping experiment. We discuss in turn algorithms for estimating noise properties from the time ordered data, techniques for manipulating the time ordered data, and a number of variants of the maximum likelihood map-making procedure. We pay particular attention to issues pertinent to real CMB data, and present ways of incorporating them within the framework of maximum likelihood map-making. Making a map of the sky is shown to be not only an intermediate step rendering an image of the sky, but also an important diagnostic stage, when tests for and/or removal of systematic effects can efficiently be performed. The case under study is the MAXIMA data set. However, the methods discussed are expected to be applicable to the analysis of other current and forthcoming CMB experiments.