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Using the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor, we measure the disk-averaged absolute Venus brightness temperature to be 432.3 $\pm$ 2.8 K and 355.6 $\pm$ 1.3 K in the Q and W frequency bands centered at 38.8 and 93.7 GHz, respectively. At both frequency bands, these are the most precise measurements to date. Furthermore, we observe no phase dependence of the measured temperature in either band. Our measurements are consistent with a CO$_2$-dominant atmospheric model that includes trace amounts of additional absorbers like SO$_2$ and H$_2$SO$_4$., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published in PSJ

The Earth's magnetic field induces Zeeman splitting of the magnetic dipole transitions of molecular oxygen in the atmosphere, which produces polarized emission in the millimeter-wave regime. This polarized emission is primarily circularly polarized and manifests as a foreground with a dipole-shaped sky pattern for polarization-sensitive ground-based cosmic microwave background experiments, such as the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), which is capable of measuring large angular scale circular polarization. Using atmospheric emission theory and radiative transfer formalisms, we model the expected amplitude and spatial distribution of this signal and evaluate the model for the CLASS observing site in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. Then, using two years of observations at 32.3 GHz to 43.7 GHz from the CLASS Q-band telescope, we present a detection of this signal and compare the observed signal to that predicted by the model. We recover an angle between magnetic north and true north of $(-5.5 \pm 0.6)^\circ$, which is consistent with the expectation of $-5.9^\circ$ for the CLASS observing site. When comparing dipole sky patterns fit to both simulated and data-derived sky maps, the dipole directions match to within a degree, and the measured amplitudes match to within ${\sim}20\%$., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, published in ApJ

Context. Interest in the use of the Chajnantor area for millimeter and submillimeter astronomy is increasing because of its excellent atmospheric conditions. Knowing the general site annual variability in precipitable water vapor (PWV) can contribute to the planning of new observatories in the area. Aims. We seek to create a 20-year atmospheric database (1997−2017) for the Chajnantor area in northern Chile using a single common physical unit, PWV. We plan to extract weather relations between the Chajnantor Plateau and the summit of Cerro Chajnantor to evaluate potential sensitivity improvements for telescopes fielded in the higher site. We aim to validate the use of submillimeter tippers to be used at other sites and use the PWV database to detect a potential signature for local climate change over 20 years. Methods. We revised our method to convert from submillimeter tipper opacity to PWV. We now include the ground temperature as an input parameter to the conversion scheme and, therefore, achieve a higher conversion accuracy. Reults. We found a decrease in the measured PWV at the summit of Cerro Chajnantor with respect to the plateau of 28%. In addition, we found a PWV difference of 1.9% with only 27 m of altitude difference between two sites in the Chajnantor Plateau: the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment and the Cosmic Background Imager near the Atacama Large Millimeter Array center. This difference is possibly due to local topographic conditions that favor the discrepancy in PWV. The scale height for the plateau was extracted from the measurements of the plateau and the Cerro Chajnantor summit, giving a value of 1537 m. Considering the results obtained in this work from the long-term study, we do not see evidence of PWV trends in the 20-year period of the analysis that would suggest climate change in such a timescale.

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is mapping the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at large angular scales ($2, Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

We describe an upgrade to the Cosmic Background Imager instrument to increase its surface brightness sensitivity at small angular scales. The upgrade consisted of replacing the thirteen 0.9-m antennas with 1.4-m antennas incorporating a novel combination of design features, which provided excellent sidelobe and spillover performance for low manufacturing cost. Off-the-shelf spun primaries were used, and the secondary mirrors were oversized and shaped relative to a standard Cassegrain in order to provide an optimum compromise between aperture efficiency and low spillover lobes. Low-order distortions in the primary mirrors were compensated for by custom machining of the secondary mirrors. The secondaries were supported on a transparent dielectric foam cone to minimize scattering. The antennas were tested in the complete instrument, and the beam shape and spillover noise contributions were as expected. We demonstrate the performance of the telescope and the inter-calibration with the previous system using observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in the cluster Abell 1689. The enhanced instrument has been used to study the cosmic microwave background, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and diffuse Galactic emission.

The diffuse cm-wave IR-correlated signal, the "anomalous" CMB foreground, is thought to arise in the dust in cirrus clouds. We present Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) cm-wave data of two translucent clouds, {\zeta} Oph and LDN 1780 with the aim of characterising the anomalous emission in the translucent cloud environment. In {\zeta} Oph, the measured brightness at 31 GHz is 2.4{\sigma} higher than an extrapolation from 5 GHz measurements assuming a free-free spectrum on 8 arcmin scales. The SED of this cloud on angular scales of 1{\odot} is dominated by free-free emission in the cm-range. In LDN 1780 we detected a 3 {\sigma} excess in the SED on angular scales of 1{\odot} that can be fitted using a spinning dust model. In this cloud, there is a spatial correlation between the CBI data and IR images, which trace dust. The correlation is better with near-IR templates (IRAS 12 and 25 {\mu}m) than with IRAS 100 {\mu}m, which suggests a very small grain origin for the emission at 31 GHz. We calculated the 31 GHz emissivities in both clouds. They are similar and have intermediate values between that of cirrus clouds and dark clouds. Nevertheless, we found an indication of an inverse relationship between emissivity and column density, which further supports the VSGs origin for the cm-emission since the proportion of big relative to small grains is smaller in diffuse clouds.

Lynds dark cloud LDN1622 represents one of the best examples of anomalous dust emission, possibly originating from small spinning dust grains. We present Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) 31-GHz data of LDN1621, a diffuse dark cloud to the north of LDN1622 in a region known as Orion East. A broken ring-like structure with diameter ≈20 arcmin of diffuse emission is detected at 31 GHz, at ≈20–30 mJy beam^(−1) with an angular resolution of ≈5 arcmin. The ring-like structure is highly correlated with far-infrared (FIR) emission at 12–100 μm with correlation coefficients of r ≈ 0.7–0.8, significant at ~10σ. The FIR-correlated emission at 31 GHz therefore appears to be mostly due to radiation associated with dust. Multifrequency data are used to place constraints on other components of emission that could be contributing to the 31-GHz flux. An analysis of the GB6 survey maps at 4.85 GHz yields a 3σ upper limit on free–free emission of 7.2 mJy beam^(−1) (≾30 per cent of the observed flux) at the CBI resolution. The bulk of the 31-GHz flux therefore appears to be mostly due to dust radiation. Aperture photometry, at an angular resolution of 13 arcmin and with an aperture of diameter 30 arcmin, allowed the use of IRAS maps and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 5-yr W-band map at 93.5 GHz. A single modified blackbody model was fitted to the data to estimate the contribution from thermal dust, which amounts to ~10 per cent at 31 GHz. In this model, an excess of 1.52 ± 0.66 Jy (2.3σ) is seen at 31 GHz. Correlations with the IRAS 100 μm gave a coupling coefficient of 18.1 ± 4.4 μK (MJy sr^(−1))^(−1), consistent with the values found for LDN1622.

The Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET) employs coherent receivers at 43GHz and 94GHz, operating on the Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert in Chile, to measure the anisotropy in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). QUIET primarily targets the B modes from primordial gravitational waves. The combination of these frequencies gives sensitivity to foreground contributions from diffuse Galactic synchrotron radiation. Between 2008 October and 2010 December, over 10,000hr of data were collected, first with the 19 element 43 GHz array (3458hr) and then with the 90 element 94 GHz array. Each array observes the same four fields, selected for low foregrounds, together covering ≈1000 deg2. This paper reports initial results from the 43 GHz receiver, which has an array sensitivity to CMB fluctuations of 69μK√s. The data were extensively studied with a large suite of null tests before the power spectra, determined with two independent pipelines, were examined. Analysis choices, including data selection, were modified until the null tests passed. Cross-correlating maps with different telescope pointings is used to eliminate a bias. This paper reports the EE, BB, and EB power spectra in the multipole range ℓ = 25-475. With the exception of the lowest multipole bin for one of the fields, where a polarized foreground, consistent with Galactic synchrotron radiation, is detected with 3σ significance, the E-mode spectrum is consistent with the ΛCDM model, confirming the only previous detection of the first acoustic peak. The B-mode spectrum is consistent with zero, leading to a measurement of the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r = 0.35+1.06 -0.87. The combination of a new time-stream "double-demodulation" technique, side-fed Dragonian optics, natural sky rotation, and frequent boresight rotation leads to the lowest level of systematic contamination in the B-mode power so far reported, below the level of r = 0.1. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope provides an unprecedented opportunity to study gamma-ray blazars. To capitalize on this opportunity, beginning in late 2007, about a year before the start of LAT science operations, we began a large-scale, fast-cadence 15 GHz radio monitoring program with the 40-m telescope at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO). This program began with the 1158 northern (declination>-20 deg) sources from the Candidate Gamma-ray Blazar Survey (CGRaBS) and now encompasses over 1500 sources, each observed twice per week with a ~4 mJy (minimum) and 3% (typical) uncertainty. Here, we describe this monitoring program and our methods, and present radio light curves from the first two years (2008 and 2009). As a first application, we combine these data with a novel measure of light curve variability amplitude, the intrinsic modulation index, through a likelihood analysis to examine the variability properties of subpopulations of our sample. We demonstrate that, with high significance (7-sigma), gamma-ray-loud blazars detected by the LAT during its first 11 months of operation vary with about a factor of two greater amplitude than do the gamma-ray-quiet blazars in our sample. We also find a significant (3-sigma) difference between variability amplitude in BL Lacertae objects and flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), with the former exhibiting larger variability amplitudes. Finally, low-redshift (z, 23 pages, 24 figures. Submitted to ApJS

We present the results of the flux density measurements at 4.85 GHz and 10.45 GHz of a sample of 5998 NVSS radio sources with the Effelsberg 100 m telescope. The initial motivation was the need to identify the NVSS radio sources that could potentially contribute significant contaminating flux in the frequency range at which the Cosmic Background Imager experiment operated. An efficient way to achieve this challenging goal has been to compute the high frequency flux density of those sources by extrapolating their radio spectrum. This is determined by the three-point spectral index measured on the basis of the NVSS entry at 1.4 GHz and the measurements at 4.85 GHz and 10.45 GHz carried out with the 100 m Effelsberg telescope. These measurements are important since the targeted sample probes the weak part of the flux density distribution, hence the decision to make the data available. We present the table with flux density measurements of 3434 sources that showed no confusion allowing reliable measurements, their detection rates, their spectral index distribution and an interpretation which explains satisfactorily the observed uncertainties., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, in press

Polarization observations of the cosmic microwave background with the Cosmic Background Imager from September 2002 to May 2004 provide a significant detection of the E-mode polarization and reveal an angular power spectrum of polarized emission showing peaks and valleys that are shifted in phase by half a cycle relative to those of the total intensity spectrum. This key agreement between the phase of the observed polarization spectrum and that predicted based on the total intensity spectrum provides support for the standard model of cosmology, in which dark matter and dark energy are the dominant constituents, the geometry is close to flat, and primordial density fluctuations are predominantly adiabatic with a matter power spectrum commensurate with inflationary cosmological models., 28 pages including 11 color figures (reduced in quality for astro-ph). Version 2 includes supplementary material (window functions etc.) and matches the published paper

Two years of microwave background observations with the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) have been combined to give a sensitive, high resolution angular power spectrum over the range 400 < l < 3500. This power spectrum has been referenced to a more accurate overall calibration derived from WMAP. The data cover 90 deg^2 including three pointings targeted for deep observations. The uncertainty on the l > 2000 power previously seen with the CBI is reduced. Under the assumption that any signal in excess of the primary anisotropy is due to a secondary Sunyaev-Zeldovich anisotropy in distant galaxy clusters we use CBI, ACBAR, and BIMA data to place a constraint on the present-day rms mass fluctuation sigma_8. We present the results of a cosmological parameter analysis on the l < 2000 primary anisotropy data which show significant improvements in the parameters as compared to WMAP alone, and we explore the role of the small-scale cosmic microwave background data in breaking parameter degeneracies., 16 pages including 14 color figures; accepted by ApJ. v2: new parameter analysis including latest VSA