CMB lens sample covariance and consistency relations

Abstract

Gravitational lensing information from the two and higher point statistics of the CMB temperature and polarization fields are intrinsically correlated because they are lensed by the same realization of structure between last scattering and observation. Using an analytic model for lens sample covariance, we show that there is one mode, separately measurable in the lensed CMB power spectra and lensing reconstruction, that carries most of this correlation. Once these measurements become lens sample variance dominated, this mode should provide a useful consistency check between the observables that is largely free of sampling and cosmological parameter errors. Violations of consistency could indicate systematic errors in the data and lens reconstruction or new physics at last scattering, any of which could bias cosmological inferences and delensing for gravitational waves. A second mode provides a weaker consistency check for a spatially flat universe. Our analysis isolates the additional information supplied by lensing in a model independent manner but is also useful for understanding and forecasting CMB cosmological parameter errors in the extended $\Lambda$CDM parameter space of dark energy, curvature and massive neutrinos. We introduce and test a simple but accurate forecasting technique for this purpose that neither double counts lensing information nor neglects lensing in the observables.