Related papers: Systematic errors in cosmic microwave background p…
Measurement of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies has been playing a lead role in precision cosmology by providing some of the tightest constrains on cosmological models and parameters. However, precision can only be meaningful…
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…
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…
Large angular scale surveys in the absence of atmosphere are essential for measuring the primordial $B$-mode power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Since this proposed measurement is about three to four orders of magnitude…
Distortions in the primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB) along the line-of-sight can be modeled and described using 11 fields. These distortion fields correspond to various cosmological signals such as weak gravitational lensing of…
In this paper we present an error analysis for polarimetric data obtained with dual-beam instruments. After recalling the basic concepts, we introduce the analytical expressions for the uncertainties of polarization degree and angle. These…
We study the effects of instrumental systematics on the estimation of primordial non-Gaussianity using the cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectrum from both the temperature and the polarization anisotropies. For temperature systematics…
We study accuracy, robustness and self-consistency of pixel-domain simulations of the gravitational lensing effect on the primordial CMB anisotropies due to the large-scale structure of the Universe. In particular, we investigate dependence…
The B-mode detection of Cosmic Microwave Background polarization will require new technological developments, able to get sensitivities at least 2 orders of magnitude better than for the E-mode. This really ambitious goal cannot be reached…
In a companion paper we have reported a $>5\sigma$ detection of degree scale $B $-mode polarization at 150 GHz by the BICEP2 experiment. Here we provide a detailed study of potential instrumental systematic contamination to that…
The next generation of galaxy surveys has the potential to substantially deepen our understanding of the Universe. This potential hinges on our ability to rigorously address systematic uncertainties. Until now, diagnosing systematic effects…
We study the propagation of a specific class of instrumental systematics to the reconstruction of the B-mode power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We focus on the non-idealities of the half-wave plate (HWP), a…
We present a fast, arbitrarily accurate method to simulate the effect of gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies and polarization fields by large scale structures. We demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of…
In this third paper of a series on radio weak lensing for cosmology with the Square Kilometre Array, we scrutinise synergies between cosmic shear measurements in the radio and optical/near-IR bands for mitigating systematic effects. We…
We measure linearly polarized beam patterns for a multi-moded concentrator and compare the results to a simple model based on geometric optics. We convolve the measured co-polar and cross-polar beams with simulated maps of CMB polarization…
We introduce a new method to propagate uncertainties in the beam shapes used to measure the cosmic microwave background to cosmological parameters determined from those measurements. The method, which we call Markov Chain Beam…
We derive an analytic formula using the Mueller matrix formalism that parameterizes the nonidealities of a half-wave plate (HWP) made from dielectric antireflection-coated birefringent slabs. This model accounts for frequency-dependent…
Future Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) satellite missions aim to use the $B$ mode polarization to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ with a sensitivity of about $10^{-3}$. Achieving this goal will not only require sufficient detector…
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 $B$…
We present a fast method for estimating the cosmic microwave background polarization power spectra using unbiased estimates of heuristically-weighted correlation functions. This extends the O(N_pix^(3/2)) method of Szapudi et al. (2001) to…