Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-10-03
Phys.Rev.D67:043004,2003
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
11 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRD
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.67.043004
The recently detected polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) holds the potential for revealing the physics of inflation and gravitationally mapping the large-scale structure of the universe, if so called B-mode signals below 10^{-7}, or tenths of a uK, can be reliably detected. We provide a language for describing systematic effects which distort the observed CMB temperature and polarization fields and so contaminate the B-modes. We identify 7 types of effects, described by 11 distortion fields, and show their association with known instrumental systematics such as common mode and differential gain fluctuations, line cross-coupling, pointing errors, and differential polarized beam effects. Because of aliasing from the small-scale structure in the CMB, even uncorrelated fluctuations in these effects can affect the large-scale B modes relevant to gravitational waves. Many of these problems are greatly reduced by having an instrumental beam that resolves the primary anisotropies (FWHM << 10'). To reach the ultimate goal of an inflationary energy scale of 3 \times 10^{15} GeV, polarization distortion fluctuations must be controlled at the 10^{-2}-10^{-3} level and temperature leakage to the 10^{-4}-10^{-3} level depending on effect. For example pointing errors must be controlled to 1.5'' rms for arcminute scale beams or a percent of the Gaussian beam width for larger beams; low spatial frequency differential gain fluctuations or line cross-coupling must be eliminated at the level of 10^{-4} rms.
Hedman Matthew M.
Hu Wayne
Zaldarriaga Matias
No associations
LandOfFree
Benchmark Parameters for CMB Polarization Experiments does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Benchmark Parameters for CMB Polarization Experiments, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Benchmark Parameters for CMB Polarization Experiments will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-24516