English

Unified and consistent structure growth measurements from joint ACT, SPT and \textit{Planck} CMB lensing

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-01-19 v2

Abstract

We present the tightest cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing constraints to date on the growth of structure by combining CMB lensing measurements from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and \textit{Planck}. Each of these surveys individually provides lensing measurements with similarly high statistical power, achieving signal-to-noise ratios of approximately 40. The combined lensing bandpowers represent the most precise CMB lensing power spectrum measurement to date with a signal-to-noise ratio of 61 and an amplitude of Alensrecon=1.025±0.017A_\mathrm{lens}^\mathrm{recon} = 1.025 \pm 0.017 with respect to the theory prediction from the best-fit CMB \textit{Planck}-ACT cosmology. The bandpowers from all three lensing datasets, analyzed jointly, yield a 1.6%1.6\% measurement of the parameter combination S8CMBLσ8(Ωm/0.3)0.25=0.8250.013+0.015S_8^\mathrm{CMBL} \equiv \sigma_8\,(\Omega_m/0.3)^{0.25} = 0.825^{+0.015}_{-0.013}. Including Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) data improves the constraint on the amplitude of matter fluctuations to σ8=0.829±0.009\sigma_8 = 0.829 \pm 0.009 (a 1.1%1.1\% determination). When combining with uncalibrated supernovae from \texttt{Pantheon+}, we present a 4%4\% sound-horizon-independent estimate of H0=66.4±2.5kms1Mpc1H_0=66.4\pm2.5\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}} . The joint lensing constraints on structure growth and present-day Hubble rate are fully consistent with a Λ\LambdaCDM model fit to the primary CMB data from \textit{Planck} and ACT. While the precise upper limit is sensitive to the choice of data and underlying model assumptions, when varying the neutrino mass sum within the ΛCDM\Lambda\mathrm{CDM} cosmological model, the combination of primary CMB, BAO and CMB lensing drives the probable upper limit for the mass sum towards lower values, comparable to the minimum mass prior required by neutrino oscillation experiments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.20038,
  title  = {Unified and consistent structure growth measurements from joint ACT, SPT and \textit{Planck} CMB lensing},
  author = {Frank J. Qu and Fei Ge and W. L. Kimmy Wu and Irene Abril-Cabezas and Mathew S. Madhavacheril and Marius Millea and Zeeshan Ahmed and Ethan Anderes and Adam J. Anderson and Behzad Ansarinejad and Melanie Archipley and Zachary Atkins and Lennart Balkenhol and Nicholas Battaglia and Karim Benabed and Amy N. Bender and Bradford A. Benson and Federico Bianchini and Lindsey. E. Bleem and Boris Bolliet and J Richard Bond and François. R. Bouchet and Lincoln Bryant and Erminia Calabrese and Etienne Camphuis and John E. Carlstrom and Julien Carron and Anthony Challinor and Clarence L. Chang and Prakrut Chaubal and Geoff Chen and Paul M. Chichura and Steve K. Choi and Aman Chokshi and Ti-Lin Chou and Anna Coerver and William Coulton and Thomas M. Crawford and Cail Daley and Omar Darwish and Tijmen de Haan and Mark J. Devlin and Karia R. Dibert and Matthew A. Dobbs and Michael Doohan and Aristide Doussot and Adriaan J. Duivenvoorden and Jo Dunkley and Rolando Dunner and Daniel Dutcher and Carmen Embil Villagra and Wendy Everett and Gerrit S. Farren and Chang Feng and Simone Ferraro and Kyle R. Ferguson and Kyra Fichman and Emily Finson and Allen Foster and Patricio A. Gallardo and Silvia Galli and Anne E. Gambrel and Rob W. Gardner and Neil Goeckner-Wald and Riccardo Gualtieri and Federica Guidi and Sam Guns and Mark Halpern and Nils W. Halverson and J. Colin Hill and Matt Hilton and Eric Hivon and Gilbert P. Holder and William L. Holzapfel and John C. Hood and Doug Howe and Alec Hryciuk and Nicholas Huang and Johannes Hubmayr and Florian Kéruzoré and Ali R. Khalife and Joshua Kim and Lloyd Knox and Milo Korman and Kayla Kornoelje and Arthur Kosowsky and Chao-Lin Kuo and Hidde T. Jense and Adrien La Posta and Kevin Levy and Amy E. Lowitz and Thibaut Louis and Chunyu Lu and Gabriel P. Lynch and Niall MacCrann and Abhishek Maniyar and Emily S. Martsen and Jeff McMahon and Felipe Menanteau and Joshua Montgomery and Yuka Nakato and Kavilan Moodley and Toshiya Namikawa and Tyler Natoli and Michael D. Niemack and Gavin I. Noble and Yuuki Omori and Aaron Ouellette and Lyman A. Page and Zhaodi Pan and Pascal Paschos and Kedar A. Phadke and Alexander W. Pollak and Karthik Prabhu and Wei Quan and Srinivasan Raghunathan and Mahsa Rahimi and Alexandra Rahlin and Christian L. Reichardt and Dave Riebel and Maclean Rouble and John E. Ruhl and Emmanuel Schaan and Eduardo Schiappucci and Neelima Sehgal and Carlos E. Sierra and Aidan Simpson and Blake D. Sherwin and Cristóbal Sifón and David N. Spergel and Suzanne T. Staggs and Joshua A. Sobrin and Antony A. Stark and Judith Stephen and Chris Tandoi and Ben Thorne and Cynthia Trendafilova and Caterina Umilta and Alexander Van Engelen and Joaquin D. Vieira and Aline Vitrier and Yujie Wan and Nathan Whitehorn and Edward J. Wollack and Matthew R. Young and Jessica A. Zebrowski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.20038},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6+3 pages, 6+4 figures. v2 matches published version in the journal. Likelihood software and data available at this https URL: https://github.com/qujia7/spt_act_likelihood/ and https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_act_spt_joint_prod_get.html