Measurements of B -mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background from 500 square degrees of SPTpol data

Abstract

We report a B-mode power spectrum measurement from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization anisotropy observations made using the SPTpol instrument on the South Pole Telescope. This work uses 500 deg 2 of SPTpol data, a five-fold increase over the last SPTpol B-mode release. As a result, the bandpower uncertainties have been reduced by more than a factor of two, and the measurement extends to lower multipoles: 52 < l < 2301. Data from both 95 and 150 GHz are used, allowing for three crossspectra: 95 GHz × 95 GHz, 95 GHz × 150 GHz, and 150 GHz × 150 GHz. B-mode power is detected at very high significance; we find PðBB < 0Þ ¼ 5.8 × 10 −71 , corresponding to a 18.1σ detection of power. With a prior on the galactic dust from Planck, WMAP and BICEP2/Keck observations, the SPTpol B-mode data can be used to set an upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r < 0.44 at 95% confidence (the expected 1σ constraint on r given the measurement uncertainties is 0.22). We find the measured B-mode power is consistent with the Planck best-fit ΛCDM model predictions. Scaling the predicted lensing B-mode power in this model by a factor A lens , the data prefer A lens ¼ 1.17 AE 0.13. These data are currently the most precise measurements of B-mode power at l > 320.

Measurements of the E -mode polarization and temperature- E -mode correlation of the CMB from SPT-3G 2018 data

“…We use the same map-making methodology as implemented for SPTpol analyses [16,17,41,42] and described in Ref. [43], here binning the TOD into 2 0 square pixels using the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.…”

“…The CMB temperature and polarization power spectra have been measured over a wide range of angular scales by the Planck satellite [1] and ground-based telescopes including the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) [12], BICEP/Keck [13], POLARBEAR [14,15], and the South Pole Telescope (SPT) (Ref. [16], hereafter H18) [17]. Several current and upcoming experiments aim to improve existing power spectrum constraints, including Advanced ACT [18], BICEP3/BICEP Array [19,20], POLARBEAR-2/Simons Array [21], the Simons Observatory [22], and SPT-3G [23].…”

LiteBIRD satellite: JAXA's new strategic L-class mission for all-sky surveys of cosmic microwave background polarization

“…Angular scale Figure 1. Summary of present measurements of CMB power spectra [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and expected polarization sensitivity of LiteBIRD.…”

Instrumental systematics biases in CMB lensing reconstruction: A simulation-based assessment

“…This distribution is a conservative estimate of possible gain systematics as current generation of experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of minimizing differential gain effects if reliable inter-calibration sources are available. POLARBEAR, for example, estimated the upper limit of these effects to be 0.3% [17], while SPTpol constrained them to be ∼ 1% prior to any marginalization [54].…”