Measurement of cosmic microwave background polarization power spectra from two years of BICEP data

Chiang, H. C., Ade, Peter A. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5127-0401, Barkats, D., Battle, J. O., Bierman, E. M., Bock, J. J., Dowell, C. D., Duband, L., Hivon, E. F., Holzapfel, W. L., Hristov, V. V., Jones, W. C., Keating, B. G., Kovac, J. M., Kuo, C. L., Lange, A. E., Leitch, E. M., Mason, P. V., Matsumura, T., Nguyen, H. T., Ponthieu, N., Pryke, C., Richter, S., Rocha, G., Sheehy, C., Takahashi, Y. D., Tolan, J. E. and Yoon, K. W. 2010. Measurement of cosmic microwave background polarization power spectra from two years of BICEP data. Astrophysical Journal 711 (2) , pp. 1123-1140. 10.1088/0004-637X/711/2/1123

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Abstract

Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) is a bolometric polarimeter designed to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. During three seasons of observing at the South Pole (2006 through 2008), BICEP mapped ~2% of the sky chosen to be uniquely clean of polarized foreground emission. Here, we present initial results derived from a subset of the data acquired during the first two years. We present maps of temperature, Stokes Q and U, E and B modes, and associated angular power spectra. We demonstrate that the polarization data are self-consistent by performing a series of jackknife tests. We study potential systematic errors in detail and show that they are sub-dominant to the statistical errors. We measure the E-mode angular power spectrum with high precision at 21 ≤ ℓ ≤ 335, detecting for the first time the peak expected at ℓ ~ 140. The measured E-mode spectrum is consistent with expectations from a ΛCDM model, and the B-mode spectrum is consistent with zero. The tensor-to-scalar ratio derived from the B-mode spectrum is r = 0.02(+0.31) (–0.26), or r < 0.72 at 95% confidence, the first meaningful constraint on the inflationary gravitational wave background to come directly from CMB B-mode polarization.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	cosmic background radiation; cosmology: observations; gravitational waves; inflation; polarization
Publisher:	IOPScience
ISSN:	0004-637X
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2022 09:58
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/33740

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