In this paper we present forecasts of the contamination on different shapes of the
primordial non-Gaussianity fnl parameter – detectable on future Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB) high–resolution anisotropy maps – produced by unresolved ex-
tragalactic point sources at frequencies of cosmological interest (45–375 GHz). We
consider two scenarios: an ideal (noiseless) mission and a possible future space-borne
satellite, with instrumental characteristics similar to the ones proposed for the Cos-
mic Origins Explorer (COrE). The local, equilateral, orthogonal and flat shapes are
considered in both temperature (intensity) and polarized emission data. The angular
power spectrum and bispectrum of extragalactic point sources are estimated by state-
of-the-art models of source number counts. The impact of all the most relevant (far–IR
and radio selected) source populations on these shapes at COrE frequencies is studied.
The results of this analysis show that unresolved extragalactic point sources should
not induce a very relevant non-Gaussian signal in the frequency range 100–200GHz,
thus not preventing a correct estimate of the CMB primordial fnl parameter. Polariza-
tion information allows one to significantly reduce the error–bars in the fnl parameter
and the bias induced by unresolved sources and, hence, to widen the range of frequen-
cies for fnl studies. On the contrary, at ν < 100 GHz or ν > 225GHz, important
non-Gaussian deviations in CMB anisotropy maps are expected due to unresolved
extragalactic sources.
