Australia Telescope Search for Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy

Abstract

We have made an 8.7 GHz image of a sky region with a resolution of 8 arcmin and high brightness sensitivity using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). in an ultra compact configuration. The foreground discrete-source confusion was estimated from observations with higher resolution at the same frequency and in a scaled array at a lower frequency. Following the subtraction of the foreground confusion, the field shows no features in excess of the instrument noise. This limits the CMB anisotropy flat-band power to Q_flat < 23.6 microK with 95 per cent confidence; the ATCA filter function F_l in multipole l-space peaks at l_eff = 4700 and has half maximum values at l = 3350 and 6050.