Scanamorphos: a map-making software for Herschel and similar scanning bolometer arrays

TL;DR

Scanamorphos is a versatile, empirical map-making software for Herschel and similar bolometer arrays that effectively removes low-frequency noise without assuming specific noise models, utilizing data redundancy for high-quality imaging.

Contribution

It introduces a noise-removal method that does not rely on noise models and can be applied to various instruments with sufficient data redundancy.

Findings

Successfully applied to Herschel data

Adaptable to other instruments like APEX/P-Artemis

Produces high-quality maps without Fourier filtering

Abstract

Scanamorphos is one of the public softwares available to post-process scan observations performed with the Herschel photometer arrays. This post-processing mainly consists in subtracting the total low-frequency noise (both its thermal and non-thermal components), masking high-frequency artefacts such as cosmic ray hits, and projecting the data onto a map. Although it was developed for Herschel, it is also applicable with minimal adjustment to scan observations made with some other imaging arrays subjected to low-frequency noise, provided they entail sufficient redundancy; it was successfully applied to P-Artemis, an instrument operating on the APEX telescope. Contrary to matrix-inversion softwares and high-pass filters, Scanamorphos does not assume any particular noise model, and does not apply any Fourier-space filtering to the data, but is an empirical tool using purely the redundancy built in the observations -- taking advantage of the fact that each portion of the sky is sampled at multiple times by multiple bolometers. It is an interactive software in the sense that the user is allowed to optionally visualize and control results at each intermediate step, but the processing is fully automated. This paper describes the principles and algorithm of Scanamorphos and presents several examples of application.