Cross-correlation between the CMB lensing potential measured by Planck and high-z sub-mm galaxies detected by the Herschel-ATLAS survey

Abstract

We present the first measurement of the correlation between the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing potential derived from the \emph{Planck} nominal mission data and $z\gtrsim 1.5$ galaxies detected by the \emph{Herschel}-ATLAS (H-ATLAS) survey covering about $600{deg}^2$, i.e. about 1.4\% of the sky. We reject the hypothesis that there is no correlation between CMB lensing and galaxy detection at a $20\ddot{I}ƒ$ significance, checking the result by performing a number of null tests. The significance of the detection of the theoretically expected cross-correlation signal is found to be $10\ddot{I}ƒ$. The galaxy bias parameter, $b$, derived from a joint analysis of the cross-power spectrum and of the auto-power spectrum of the galaxy density contrast is found to be $b=2.80_{-0.11}^{+0.12}$, consistent with earlier estimates for H-ATLAS galaxies at similar redshifts. On the other hand, the amplitude of the cross-correlation is found to be a factor $1.62\pm 0.16$ higher than expected from the standard model and also found by cross-correlation analyses with other tracers of the large-scale structure. The enhancement due to lensing magnification can account for only a fraction of the excess cross-correlation signal. We suggest that part of it may be due to an incomplete removal of the contamination of the CIB, that includes the H-ATLAS sources we are cross-correlating with. In any case, the highly significant detection reported here using a catalog covering only 1.4\% of the sky demonstrates the potential of CMB lensing correlations with submillimeter surveys.

14 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables, accepted for pubblication in ApJ, minor changes to match the published version