QUIJOTE scientific results

XIX. New constraints on the synchrotron spectral index using a semi-blind component separation method

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
² Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
³ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA), CSIC-Univ. de Cantabria, Avda. los Castros, s/n, E-39005 Santander, Spain
⁴ Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, J J Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
⁵ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA, UK
⁶ Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS/IN2P3, 53 Avenue des Martyrs, Grenoble, France
⁷ Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, E-28006 Madrid, Spain

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 20 October 2025
Accepted: 1 February 2026

Abstract

We introduce a novel approach to estimate the spectral index, β_s, of polarised synchrotron emission, combining the moment expansion of Cosmic Microwave Background foregrounds and the constrained Internal Linear Combination method. We reconstructed the maps of the first two synchrotron moments, combining multi-frequency data, and applied the ‘T-T plot’ technique between two moment maps to estimate the synchrotron spectral index. This approach offers a new technique for mapping the foreground spectral parameters, complementing the model-based parametric component separation methods. Applying this technique, we derived a new constraint on the spectral index of polarised synchrotron emission using QUIJOTE MFI wide-survey 11 and 13 GHz data, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data at K and Ka bands, and Planck LFI 30 GHz data. In the Galactic plane and North Polar Spur regions, we obtained an inverse-variance-weighted mean synchrotron index of β_s = −3.11 with a standard deviation of 0.21 due to intrinsic scatter, consistent with previous results based on parametric methods using the same dataset. We find that the inverse-variance-weighted mean spectral index, including both statistical and systematic uncertainties, is β_s^plane = −3.05 ± 0.01 in the Galactic plane and β_s^high-lat = −3.13 ± 0.02 at high latitudes, indicating a moderate steepening of the spectral index from low to high Galactic latitudes. Our analysis indicates that, within the current upper limit on the Anomalous Microwave Emission polarisation fraction, our results are not subject to any appreciable bias. Furthermore, we infer the spectral index over the entire QUIJOTE survey region, partitioning the sky into 21 patches. This technique can be further extended to constrain the synchrotron spectral curvature by reconstructing higher-order moments when better-quality data become available.