Distribution of Singularities in the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization

Details Distribution of Singularities in the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Distribution of Singularities in the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization

2004-05-24

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0405474v1

Phys.Rev. D72 (2005) 043004

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PRD

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevD.72.043004

The polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation will have a distribution of singularities and anti-singularities, points where the polarization vanishes for topological reasons. The statistics of polarization singularities provides a non-trivial scheme to analyze the polarization maps that is distinct from the usual two-point correlation functions. Here we characterize the statistics of the singularity distribution in simulated polarization maps, and make predictions that can be compared with ongoing and upcoming observations. We use three different characterizations: the nearest neighbor distance between singularities, the critical exponent \nu that captures the scaling of total charge q within a closed curve of length L (q \propto L^\nu), and the angular two point angular correlation functions for singularities of similar and opposite charge. In general, we find that the distribution of singularities is random except on scales less than about 10 deg, where singularities of the same charge repel and those of opposite charge attract. These conclusions appear to be extremely robust with respect to variations in the underlying cosmological model and the presence of non-Gaussianity; the only exception we found are cases where statistical isotropy is grossly violated. This suggests that, within the assumption of statistical isotropy, the distribution is a robust feature of the last scattering surface and potentially may be used as a tool to discriminate effects that occur during photon propagation from the last scattering surface to the present epoch.

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