paper

New Constraints on Cosmic Polarization Rotation from B-Mode Polarization in Cosmic Microwave Background

arXiv:1404.1701 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/792/1/35

Abstract

STPpol, POLARBEAR and BICEP2 have recently measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization in various sky regions of several tens of square degrees and obtained BB power spectra in the multipole range 20-3000, detecting the components due to gravitational lensing and to inflationary gravitational waves. We analyze jointly the results of these three experiments and propose modifications of their analysis of the spectra to include in the model, in addition to the gravitational lensing and the inflationary gravitational waves components, also the effects induced by the cosmic polarization rotation (CPR), if it exists within current upper limits. Although in principle our analysis would lead also to new constraints on CPR, in practice these can only be given on its fluctuations <δα^2>, since constraints on its mean angle are inhibited by the de-rotation which is applied by current CMB polarization experiments, in order to cope with the insufficient calibration of the polarization angle. The combined data fits from all three experiments (with 29% CPR-SPTpol correlation, depending on theoretical model) gives constraint <δα^2>^1/2 < 27.3 mrad (1.56°) with r = 0.194 \pm 0.033. These results show that the present data are consistent with no CPR detection and the constraint on CPR fluctuation is about 1.5°. This method of constraining the cosmic polarization rotation is new, is complementary to previous tests, which use the radio and optical/UV polarization of radio galaxies and the CMB E-mode polarization, and adds a new constraint for the sky areas observed by SPTpol, POLARBEAR and BICEP2.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal

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