Related papers: Systematic Errors in Cosmic Microwave Background I…
Cosmological Birefringence (CB) is a phenomenon, caused by parity violating modifications to electrodynamics, whereby the linear polarisation angle of light changes as photons traverse a vacuum. It is possible to use a number of different…
Polarized Galactic foregrounds are one of the primary sources of systematic error in measurements of the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Experiments are becoming increasingly sensitive to complexities in the…
We extend a general maximum likelihood foreground estimation for cosmic microwave background polarization data to include estimation of instrumental systematic effects. We focus on two particular effects: frequency band measurement…
Cosmic Microwave Background experiments must achieve very accurate calibration of their polarization reference frame to avoid biasing the cosmological parameters. In particular, a wrong or inaccurate calibration might mimic the presence of…
We present a formalism for performance forecasting and optimization of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We implement it in the context of nearly full sky, multifrequency, B-mode polarization observations, incorporating…
An extended analysis of some instrumental polarisation sources has been done, as a consequence of the renewed interest in extremely sensitive polarisation measurements stimulated by Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. The case of…
Precise polarisation measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) require accurate knowledge of the instrument orientation relative to the sky frame used to define the cosmological Stokes parameters. Suitable celestial calibration…
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) is an invaluable probe of the conditions of the early universe. Recent measurements of its spatial anisotropy have allowed accurate determinations of several fundamental cosmological…
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimetry has the potential to provide revolutionary advances in cosmology. Future experiments to detect the very weak B mode signal in CMB polarization maps will require unprecedented sensitivity and…
Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) is a bolometric polarimeter designed to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. During three seasons of…
If the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is rotated in a frequency-independent manner as it propagates from the surface of last scatter, it may introduce a B-mode polarization. Here I show that measurement of…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a fundamental observational tool in modern cosmology. The linear polarization of the CMB provides a crucial observational tool for exploring new physics, including the inflationary paradigm and…
We evaluate the expected level of foreground contamination to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarised radiation, focusing on the diffuse emission from our own Galaxy. In particular, we perform a first attempt to simulate an all sky…
In addition to its spectrum and temperature anisotropy, the 2.7K Cosmic Microwave Background is also expected to exhibit a low level of polarization. The spatial power spectrum of the polarization can provide details about the formation of…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be used to search for parity-violating processes like that predicted by a Chern-Simons coupling to a light pseudoscalar field. Such an interaction rotates $E$ modes into $B$…
The coming flood of CMB polarization experiments, spurred by the recent detection of CMB polarization by DASI and WMAP, will be confronted by many new analysis tasks specific to polarization. For the analysis of CMB polarization data sets,…
Polarimetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) represents one of the possible diagnostics aimed at testing large-scale magnetism at the epoch of the photon decoupling. The propagation of electromagnetic disturbances in a magnetized…
Analysis of cosmic microwave background (CMB) datasets typically requires some filtering of the raw time-ordered data. Filtering is frequently used to minimize the impact of low frequency noise, atmospheric contributions and/or scan…
Cosmological Birefringence (CB), a rotation of the polarization plane of radiation coming to us from distant astrophysical sources, may reveal parity violation in either the electromagnetic or gravitational sectors of the fundamental…
Searching for the signal of primordial gravitational waves in the B-modes (BB) power spectrum is one of the key scientific aims of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments. However, this could be easily contaminated by…