Foreground Maps in WMAP frequency bands

TL;DR

This paper presents detailed full-sky foreground emission maps across all WMAP frequency bands, achieved by subtracting a carefully filtered CMB map, enabling improved studies of galactic structures with reduced contamination and noise.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel method for creating low-contamination, high-quality foreground maps from WMAP data using needlet-based CMB subtraction and local filtering techniques.

Findings

Foreground maps have significantly lower large-scale errors.

Local filters improve contrast of galactic emission.

Maps are suitable for interstellar medium studies.

Abstract

This paper provides full sky maps of foreground emission in all WMAP channels, with very low residual contamination from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies and controlled level of instrumental noise. Foreground maps are obtained by subtraction of a properly filtered CMB map, obtained from linear combinations of needlet-based representations of all WMAP observations and of a 100-micron map. The error in the reconstructed foreground maps on large scales is significantly lower than the original error due to CMB contamination, while remaining of the order of the original WMAP noise on small scales. The level of the noise is estimated, which permits to implement local filters for maximising the local signal to noise ratio. An example of such filtering, which reduces the small scale noise using latitude dependent filters is implemented. This enhances significantly the contrast of galactic emission, in particular on intermediate angular scales and at intermediate galactic latitude. The clean WMAP foreground maps can be used to study the galactic interstellar medium, in particular for the highest frequency channels for which the proper subtraction of CMB contamination is mandatory. The foregrounds maps can be downloaded from a dedicated web site.