Impact of the 1/f noise and the asymmetric beam on non-Gaussianity searches with Planck

TL;DR

This paper investigates how 1/f noise and asymmetric beams affect primordial non-Gaussianity detection in Planck data, finding minimal impact on the analysis results.

Contribution

It provides a systematic study of instrumental effects on non-Gaussianity searches using realistic simulations and multiple analysis methods.

Findings

Minimal impact of 1/f noise on non-Gaussianity detection

Asymmetric beam effects are negligible for Planck data

No significant bias introduced in fNL estimates

Abstract

We study the impact of correlated instrumental noise and non-circular antenna beam patterns on primordial non-Gaussianity analysis. The two systematic effects are reproduced in the case of the Planck mission, using Planck-like realistic simulations. The non-Gaussian analysis is conducted with different approaches. First we adopt a blind approach, using the Spherical Mexican Hat Wavelet and the Minkowski functionals, and then a fNL estimator. We look respectively for false primordial non-Gaussian detections and for bias or variance increase in the estimated fNL value. Even if some slight effects are present, we can not observe any significant impact of the 1/f noise and the asymmetric beam on non-Gaussianity searches in the context of the Planck mission.