The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) is an all-sky full-polarization survey at a frequency of 5 GHz, designed to provide complementary data to the all-sky surveys of WMAP and Planck, and future CMB B-mode polarization imaging surveys. The observing frequency has been chosen to provide a signal that is dominated by Galactic synchrotron emission, but suffers little from Faraday rotation, so that the measured polarization directions provide a good template for higher frequency observations, and carry direct information about the Galactic magnetic field. Telescopes in both northern and southern hemispheres with matched optical performance are used to provide all-sky coverage from a ground-based experiment. A continuous-comparison radiometer and a correlation polarimeter on each telescope provide stable imaging properties such that all angular scales from the instrument resolution of 45 arcmin up to full sky are accurately measured. The northern instrument has completed its survey and the southern instrument has started observing. We expect that C-BASS data will significantly improve the component separation analysis of Planck and other CMB data, and will provide important constraints on the properties of anomalous Galactic dust and the Galactic magnetic field.

In this paper, we present a novel implementation of Bayesian cosmic microwave background (CMB) component separation. We sample from the full posterior distribution using the No-U-Turn Sampler (NUTS), a gradient-based sampling algorithm. Alongside this, we introduce new foreground modelling approaches. We use the mean shift algorithm to define regions on the sky, clustering according to naively estimated foreground spectral parameters. Over these regions we adopt a complete pooling model, where we assume constant spectral parameters, and a hierarchical model, where we model individual pixel spectral parameters as being drawn from underlying hyperdistributions. We validate the algorithm against simulations of the LiteBIRD and C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) experiments, with an input tensor-to-scalar ratio of r = 5 × 10−3. Considering multipoles 30 ≤ ℓ < 180, we are able to recover estimates for r. With LiteBIRD-only observations, and using the complete pooling model, we recover r = (12.9 ± 1.4) × 10−3. For C-BASS and LiteBIRD observations we find r = (9.0 ± 1.1) × 10−3 using the complete pooling model, and r = (5.2 ± 1.0) × 10−3 using the hierarchical model. Unlike the complete pooling model, the hierarchical model captures pixel-scale spatial variations in the foreground spectral parameters, and therefore produces cosmological parameter estimates with reduced bias, without inflating their uncertainties. Measured by the rate of effective sample generation, NUTS offers performance improvements of ∼103 over using Metropolis–Hastings to fit the complete pooling model. The efficiency of NUTS allows us to fit the more sophisticated hierarchical foreground model that would likely be intractable with non-gradient-based sampling algorithms.

Anomalous Microwave Emission (AME) is a significant component of Galactic diffuse emission in the frequency range 10-60 GHz and a new window into the properties of sub-nanometre-sized grains in the interstellar medium. We investigate the morphology of AME in the ≈10○ diameter λ Orionis ring by combining intensity data from the QUIJOTE experiment at 11, 13, 17 and 19 GHz, and the C-Band All Sky Survey (C-BASS) at 4.76 GHz, together with 19 ancillary datasets between 1.42 and 3000 GHz. Maps of physical parameters at 1○ resolution are produced through Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) fits of spectral energy distributions (SEDs), approximating the AME component with a log-normal distribution. AME is detected in excess of 20 σ at degree-scales around the entirety of the ring along photodissociation regions (PDRs), with three primary bright regions containing dark clouds. A radial decrease is observed in the AME peak frequency from ≈35 GHz, near the free-free region to ≈21 GHz, in the outer regions of the ring, which is the first detection of AME spectral variations across a single region. A strong correlation between AME peak frequency, emission measure and dust temperature is an indication for the dependence of the AME peak frequency on the local radiation field. The AME amplitude normalized by the optical depth is also strongly correlated with the radiation field, giving an overall picture consistent with spinning dust where the local radiation field plays a key role.

The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) is a high-sensitivity all-sky radio survey at an angular resolution of 45 arcmin and a frequency of 4.7 GHz. We present a total intensity map of the North Celestial Pole (NCP) region of sky, above declination > +80 • , which is limited by source confusion at a level of ≈ 0.6 mK rms. We apply the templatefitting (cross-correlation) technique to WMAP and Planck data, using the C-BASS map as the synchrotron template, to investigate the contribution of diffuse foreground emission at frequencies ∼ 20-40 GHz. We quantify the anomalous microwave emission (AME) that is correlated with far-infrared dust emission. The AME amplitude does not change significantly (< 10 %) when using the higher frequency C-BASS 4.7 GHz template instead of the traditional Haslam 408 MHz map as a tracer of synchrotron radiation. We measure template coefficients of 9.93 ± 0.35 and 9.52 ± 0.34 K per unit τ 353 when using the Haslam and C-BASS synchrotron templates, respectively. The AME contributes 55 ± 2 µK rms at 22.8 GHz and accounts for ≈ 60% of the total foreground emission. Our results show that a harder (flatter spectrum) component of synchrotron emission is not dominant at frequencies 5 GHz; the best-fitting synchrotron temperature spectral index is β = −2.91 ± 0.04 from 4.7 to 22.8 GHz and β = −2.85 ± 0.14 from 22.8 to 44.1 GHz. Free-free emission is weak, contributing ≈ 7 µK rms (≈ 7%) at 22.8 GHz. The best explanation for the AME is still electric dipole emission from small spinning dust grains.

The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) has observed the Galaxy at 4.76 GHz with an angular resolution of 0${_{.}^{\circ}}$73 full-width half-maximum, and detected Galactic synchrotron emission with high signal-to-noise ratio over the entire northern sky (δ &gt; −15○). We present the results of a spatial correlation analysis of Galactic foregrounds at mid-to-high (b &gt; 10○) Galactic latitudes using a preliminary version of the C-BASS intensity map. We jointly fit for synchrotron, dust, and free–free components between 20 and 1000 GHz and look for differences in the Galactic synchrotron spectrum, and the emissivity of anomalous microwave emission (AME) when using either the C-BASS map or the 408 MHz all-sky map to trace synchrotron emission. We find marginal evidence for a steepening (&lt;Δβ &gt; = − 0.06 ± 0.02) of the Galactic synchrotron spectrum at high frequencies resulting in a mean spectral index of &lt;β &gt; = − 3.10 ± 0.02 over 4.76–22.8 GHz. Further, we find that the synchrotron emission can be well modelled by a single power-law up to a few tens of GHz. Due to this, we find that the AME emissivity is not sensitive to changing the synchrotron tracer from the 408 MHz map to the 4.76 GHz map. We interpret this as strong evidence for the origin of AME being spinning dust emission.