High-Latitude Galactic Emission in the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer 2 Year Sky Maps
Abstract
We cross-correlate the COBE6 DMR 2 year sky maps with spatial templates from long-wavelength radio surveys and the far-infrared COBE DIRBE maps. We place an upper limit on the spectral index of synchrotron radiation βsynch < -2.9 between 408 MHz and 31.5 GHz. We obtain a statistically significant cross-correlation with the DIRBE maps, whose dependence on the DMR frequencies indicates a superposition of dust and free-free emission. The high-latitude dust emission (|b| > 30°) is well fitted by a single dust component with temperature T = 18+3-7 K and emissivity ν ∝ (υ/ν0)β with β = 1.9+3.0-0.5. The free-free emission is spatially correlated with the dust on angular scales larger than the 70 DMR beam, with rms variations 5.3±1.8 μK at 53 GHz and angular power spectrum p ∝ l-3. If this correlation persists to smaller angular scales, free-free emission should not be a significant contaminant to measurements of the cosmic microwave anisotropy at degree angular scales for frequencies above 20 GHz.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- March 1996
- DOI:
- 10.1086/176947
- Bibcode:
- 1996ApJ...460....1K
- Keywords:
-
- COSMOLOGY: COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND;
- ISM: DUST;
- EXTINCTION;
- RADIO CONTINUUM: ISM