The C-Band All Sky Survey commissioning and data analysis.

Abstract

The C-Band All Sky Survey (C-BASS) is a ground based radio survey that scans the entire sky in Stokes I, Q and U at a central frequency of 5 GHz with a 1 GHz bandwidth and an angular resolution of 0.73 . The experiment consists of two telescopes, one at Owens Valley Radio Observatory in California and the other at the SKA support base in Klerefontein, South Africa. The primary aim of this experiment is to produce high fidelity maps of the entire sky in Stokes I, Q and U. These maps will be used by CMB experiments for the removal of Galactic foreground radiation, via component separation, and will provide vital aid in the search for the primordial CMB B-mode polarized signal. C-BASS also aims to probe the Galactic magnetic field using synchrotron radiation and will search for new areas of anomalous microwave emission. In this thesis, I present the contribution that I have made to the C-BASS experiment. I contributed to C-BASS instrumentation development by working extensively on the commissioning of the southern telescope; in particular, I developed an optical pointing system and refined the automated analysis process. I contributed to the development of the C-BASS data analysis pipeline for both the northern and southern telescopes, with the development of a new RFI flagging method, work on map making techniques and convergence, and self-consistency tests. The northern survey is complete and data analysis is at an advanced stage. The southern instrument is undergoing commissioning on site and will soon begin survey operations. My contributions to the project have improved the processed data quality in both surveys and will aid in the successful completion of the southern survey.