A 3D model for CO molecular line emission as a potential CMB polarization contaminant

Abstract

We present a model for simulating Carbon Monoxide (CO) rotational line emission in molecular clouds, taking account of their 3D spatial distribution in galaxies with different geometrical properties. The model implemented is based on recent results in the literature and has been designed for performing Monte-Carlo simulations of this emission. We compare the simulations produced with this model and calibrate them, both on the map level and on the power spectrum level, using the second release of data from the Planck satellite for the Galactic plane, where the signal-to-noise ratio is highest. We use the calibrated model to extrapolate the CO power spectrum at low Galactic latitudes where no high sensitivity observations are available yet. We then forecast the level of unresolved polarized emission from CO molecular clouds which could contaminate the power spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization B-modes away from the Galactic plane. Assuming realistic levels of the polarization fraction, we show that the level of contamination is equivalent to a cosmological signal with $r\lesssim 0.02$. The Monte-Carlo MOlecular Line Emission (MCMole3D) Python package, which implements this model, is being made publicly available.

Added analysis for axisymmetric models. Matches version accepted in MNRAS

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• The Simons Observatory: Galactic Science Goals and Forecasts
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• Principal component analysis of the primordial tensor power spectrum
• Inpainting Galactic Foreground Intensity and Polarization maps using Convolutional Neural Network
• Dust polarization spectral dependence from Planck HFI data. Turning point on CMB polarization foregrounds modelling
• Improved Galactic Foreground Removal for B-Modes Detection with Clustering Methods
• Requirements for future CMB satellite missions: photometric and band-pass response calibration
• Detection of WHIM in the Planck data using Stack First approach
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• LiteBIRD science goals and forecasts: improved full-sky reconstruction of the gravitational lensing potential through the combination of Planck and LiteBIRD data
• Extending Galactic foreground emission with neural networks
• On the computational feasibility of Bayesian end-to-end analysis of LiteBIRD simulations within Cosmoglobe