Comparison of the Planck 2018 CMB polarization maps in the BICEP2/Keck region

Abstract

We examine the statistical properties of polarization maps from Planck 2018 within the patch of sky observed by the BICEP2/Keck experiment using the one point distribution function (1PDF), skewness, and kurtosis statistics. Our analysis is performed for the Q and U Stokes parameters and for the corresponding E- and B-modes of the CMB signals. We extend our analysis by studying the correlations between CMB polarization maps and residual maps (the difference between the full signal and the CMB map) for the frequency range of 100–217 GHz with both the Q/U and E/B approaches. Although all the CMB maps reveal almost Gaussian statistical properties for Q/U and E/B domains, we have detected very significant anomalies for cross-correlations with residuals at 100 GHz at the level of 3.7σ for the Commander map and 5.2σ for NILC, for both the Q and U parameters. Using the NILC-Commander difference, which does not contain a cosmological signal, we find a sub-dominant non-Gaussian component in Q skewness and kurtosis at the level of 4.3σ and 10σ, respectively. For the B-mode we have found a very high level of cross-correlation (0.63–0.69) between the NILC/Commander maps and the 143 GHz total signal, which cannot be associated with the cosmological component. These strong deviations suggest that remnants of foregrounds, systematic effects, and component separation exist in the 2018 Planck CMB polarization maps in the BICEP2 sky area, which is far away from the Galactic plane. Our analysis also demonstrates the preferability of the Q/U domain over E/B for determination of the statistical properties of the derived CMB signals, due to non-locality of the transition Q/U → E/B.