Beyond CMB cosmic variance limits on reionization with the polarized SZ effect
Abstract
Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys will soon make the first detection of the polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the linear polarization generated by the scattering of CMB photons on the free electrons present in collapsed objects. Measurement of this polarization along with knowledge of the electron density of the objects allows a determination of the quadrupolar temperature anisotropy of the CMB as viewed from the space-time location of the objects. Maps of these remote temperature quadrupoles have several cosmological applications. Here we propose a new application: reconstruction of the cosmological reionization history. We show that with quadrupole measurements out to redshift 3, constraints on the mean optical depth can be improved by an order of magnitude beyond the CMB cosmic variance limit.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1710.01708,
title = {Beyond CMB cosmic variance limits on reionization with the polarized SZ effect},
author = {Joel Meyers and P. Daniel Meerburg and Alexander van Engelen and Nicholas Battaglia},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.01708},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
v3: Added 2 figures, expanded discussion, minor edits, 6+2 pages, 8 figures. v2: Added figure, updated references, minor edits, 6+2 pages, 6 figures. v1: 6+2 pages, 5 figures. Comments welcome