Unbiased Primordial Gravitational Wave Inference from the CMB with SMICA
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
2026-02-26 v3
Abstract
The detection of primordial gravitational waves in Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode polarization observations requires accurate and robust subtraction of astrophysical contamination. We show, using a blind Spectral Matching Independent Component Analysis, that it is possible to infer unbiased estimates of the primordial B-mode signal from ground-based observations of a small patch of sky even for highly complex foreground contamination. This work, originally performed in the context of configuration studies for a future CMB-S4 observatory, is highly relevant for the analysis of observations by the current generation of CMB experiments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.26767,
title = {Unbiased Primordial Gravitational Wave Inference from the CMB with SMICA},
author = {Alexander Steier and Shamik Ghosh and Jacques Delabrouille},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.26767},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
18 pages, 9 figures. Version published in JCAP