COSMOSOMAS Observations of the CMB and Galactic Foregrounds at 11 GHz: Evidence for anomalous microwave emission at high Galactic Latitude

TL;DR

This study presents 11 GHz observations of the cosmic microwave background and galactic foregrounds, revealing evidence for anomalous microwave emission at high Galactic latitudes, likely due to spinning dust rather than synchrotron radiation.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence of anomalous microwave emission at 11 GHz, supporting the spinning dust hypothesis and expanding understanding of galactic foregrounds.

Findings

Detection of a dust-correlated component with amplitude 9-13 microK

Spectral flattening below 20 GHz rules out synchrotron origin

Emission consistent with free-free and spinning dust models

Abstract

We present observations with the new 11 GHz radiometer of the COSMOSOMAS experiment at the Teide Observatory (Tenerife). The sky region between 0 deg <= RA <= 360 deg and 26 deg <= DEC 49 deg (ca. 6500 square degrees) was observed with an angular resolution of 0.9 deg. Two orthogonal independent channels in the receiving system measured total power signals from linear polarizations with a 2 GHz bandwidth. Maps with an average sensitivity of 50 microK per beam have been obtained for each channel. At high Galactic latitude (|b|>30deg) the 11 GHz data are found to contain the expected cosmic microwave background as well as extragalactic radiosources, galactic synchrotron and free-free emission, and a dust-correlated component which is very likely of galactic origin. At the angular scales allowed by the window function of the experiment, the dust-correlated component presents an amplitude \Delta T aprox. 9-13 microK while the CMB signal is of order 27 microK. The spectral behaviour of the dust-correlated signal is examined in the light of previous COSMOSOMAS data at 13-17 GHz and WMAP data at 22-94 GHz in the same sky region. We detect a flattening in the spectral index of this signal below 20 GHz which rules out synchrotron radiation as being responsible for the emission. This anomalous dust emission can be described by a combination of free-free emission and spinning dust models with a flux density peaking around 20 GHz.