2009/05/23 by N. E. Groeneboom, Nicolaas E. Groeneboom, Groeneboom, Nicolaas E. · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0905.3823
11 pages,
arxiv created 2009/05/23 · openalex publication_date 2009/05/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a consistent self-contained and pedagogical review of the CMB Gibbs sampler, focusing on computational methods and code design. We provide an easy-to-use CMB Gibbs sampler named SLAVE developed in C++ using object-oriented design. While discussing why the need for a Gibbs sampler is evident and what the Gibbs sampler can be used for in a cosmological context, we review in detail the analytical expressions for the conditional probability densities and discuss the problems of galactic foreground removal and anisotropic noise. Having demonstrated that SLAVE is a working, usable CMB Gibbs sampler, we present the algorithm for white noise level estimation. We then give a short guide on operating SLAVE before introducing the post-processing utilities for obtaining the best-fit power spectrum using the Blackwell-Rao estimator.