The Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and Galactic Emission at 8.0 and 8.3 GHz

Abstract

We report balloon-borne measurements at 8.0 and 8.3 GHz of Galactic emission and of the radiometric temperature of the cosmic microwave background, the results from the first flight of the ARCADE 2 (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission) instrument. We find the Galactic free-free emission intensity in the plane to be two-thirds as high as that predicted by a naive extrapolation of 2003 WMAP K-band data, a result consistent with 2006 WMAP findings, and find the Galactic synchrotron emission intensity to be approximately as high as that predicted by a naive interpolation of Haslam all-sky survey and WMAP K-band data. We find TCMB to be 2.90 ± 0.12 K at 8.0 GHz and 2.77 ± 0.16 K at 8.3 GHz. © 2006. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.