BOOMERanG Constraints on Primordial Non-Gaussianity from Analytical Minkowski Functionals
astro-ph.CO
/ Authors
P. Natoli, G. De Troia, C. Hikage, E. Komatsu, M. Migliaccio, P. A. R. Ade, J. J. Bock, J. R. Bond, J. Borrill, A. Boscaleri
and 25 more authors
C. R. Contaldi, B. P. Crill, P. de Bernardis, G. de Gasperis, A. de Oliveira-Costa, G. Di Stefano, E. Hivon, T. S. Kisner, W. C. Jones, A. E. Lange, S. Masi, P. D. Mauskopf, C. J. MacTavish, A. Melchiorri, T. E. Montroy, C. B. Netterfield, E. Pascale, F. Piacentini, G. Polenta, S. Ricciardi, G. Romeo, J. E. Ruhl, M. Tegmark
/ Abstract
We use Minkowski Functionals (MF) to constrain a primordial non-Gaussian contribution to the CMB intensity field as observed in the 150 GHz and 145 GHz BOOMERanG maps from the 1998 and 2003 flights, respectively, performing for the first time a joint analysis of the two datasets. A perturbative expansion of the MF formulae in the limit of a weakly non-Gaussian field yields analytical formulae, derived by Hikage et al. (2006), which can be used to constrain the coupling parameter f_NL without the need for non-Gaussian simulations. We find -1020<f_NL<390 at 95% CL, significantly improving the previous constraints by De Troia et al. (2007) on the BOOMERanG 2003 dataset. These are the best f_NL limits to date for suborbital probes.