Scalar Quadratic Maximum-likelihood Estimators for the CMB Cross-power Spectrum

Abstract

Estimating the cross-correlation power spectra of the cosmic microwave background, in particular, the TB and EB spectra, is important for testing parity symmetry in cosmology and diagnosing insidious instrumental systematics. The quadratic maximum-likelihood (QML) estimator provides optimal estimates of the power spectra, but it is computationally very expensive. The hybrid pseudo-C ℓ estimator is computationally fast but performs poorly on large scales. As a natural extension of previous work, in this article, we present a new unbiased estimator based on the Smith–Zaldarriaga (SZ) approach of E–B separation and the scalar QML approach to reconstruct the cross-correlation power spectrum, called the QML-SZ estimator. Our new estimator relies on the ability to construct scalar maps, which allows us to use a scalar QML estimator to obtain the cross-correlation power spectrum. By reducing the pixel number and algorithm complexity, the computational cost is nearly one order of magnitude smaller and the running time is nearly two orders of magnitude faster in the test situations.