Exactly Azimuthal Pixelizations of the Sky

Abstract

We investigate various pixelizations of the sky which allow for fast spherical transforms, for implementation in full sky CMB experiments such as Planck and MAP. We study the effect of varying pixel shape and area on the extraction of the CMB power spectrum. We argue for the benefits of having a truly azimuthal, or `igloo' pixelization. Such pixelizations are simple and allow for fast, exact simulations of pixelized skies. They also allow for precise correction to be made which accounts for the effects of pixel smoothing on extracted multipole moments.

17 pages, 10 postscript figures

Cited by in corpus (12)

• A novel sampling theorem on the sphere
• New Measurements of Fine-Scale CMB Polarization Power Spectra from CAPMAP at Both 40 and 90 GHz
• Fast directional continuous spherical wavelet transform algorithms
• An Optimal-Dimensionality Sampling Scheme on the Sphere with Fast Spherical Harmonic Transforms
• Libpsht - algorithms for efficient spherical harmonic transforms
• There Goes the Neighborhood: Relational Algebra for Spatial Data Search
• Sparse image reconstruction on the sphere: analysis and synthesis
• Fast, exact (but unstable) spin spherical harmonic transforms
• A Fast and Accurate Algorithm for Spherical Harmonic Analysis on HEALPix Grids with Applications to the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
• Efficient data structures for masks on 2D grids
• Computing challenges of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Optimal-Dimensionality Sampling on the Sphere: Improvements and Variations