Cosmic Microwave Background Experiments Research Articles

Planck intermediate results

The largest temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the dipole, which has been measured with increasing accuracy for more than three decades, particularly with the Planck satellite. The simplest interpretation of the dipole is that it is due to our motion with respect to the rest frame of the CMB. Since current CMB experiments infer temperature anisotropies from angular intensity variations, the dipole modulates the temperature anisotropies with the same frequency dependence as the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect. We present the first, and significant, detection of this signal in the tSZ maps and find that it is consistent with direct measurements of the CMB dipole, as expected. The signal contributes power in the tSZ maps, which is modulated in a quadrupolar pattern, and we estimate its contribution to the tSZ bispectrum, noting that it contributes negligible noise to the bispectrum at relevant scales.

Probing dark photons in the early universe with big bang nucleosynthesis

We perform calculations of dark photon production and decay in the early universe for ranges of dark photon masses and vacuum coupling with standard model photons. Simultaneously and self-consistently with dark photon production and decay, our calculations include a complete treatment of weak decoupling and big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) physics. These calculations incorporate all relevant weak, electromagnetic, and strong nuclear reactions, including charge-changing (isospin-changing) lepton capture and decay processes. They reveal a rich interplay of dark photon production, decay, and associated out-of-equilibrium transport of entropy into the decoupling neutrino seas. Most importantly, the self-consistent nature of our simulations allows us to capture the magnitude and phasing of entropy injection and dilution. Entropy injection-induced alteration of the time-temperature-scale factor relation during weak decoupling and BBN leads to changes in the light element abundance yields and the total radiation content (as parametrized by Neff). These changes suggest ways to extend previous dark photon BBN constraints. However, our calculations also identify ranges of dark photon mass and couplings not yet constrained, but perhaps accessible and probable, in future Stage-4 cosmic microwave background experiments and future high precision primordial deuterium abundance measurements.

SQUIDs and Transition-Edge Sensors

In 1988, I begin as a graduate student in Blas Cabrera’s group at Stanford University. I was drawn by the group’s focus on fundamental physics questions using a sensitive new type of detector: the superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES). However, these sensors had important flaws. They were unstable, they were slow, and they could not be made to work in arrays. I describe the discovery as a graduate student that the Josephson Junction, and the SQUID amplifier it enables, changes all of that. This discovery has led to generations of science with dark matter detectors, x-ray spectrometers, and cosmic microwave background experiments.

Requirements for future CMB satellite missions: photometric and band-pass response calibration

Current and future Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation experiments are targeting the polarized B-mode signal. The small amplitude of this signal makes a successful measurement challenging for current technologies. Therefore, very accurate studies to mitigate and control possible systematic effects are vital to achieve a successful observation. An additional challenge is coming from the presence of polarized Galactic foreground signals that contaminate the CMB signal. When they are combined, the foreground signals dominate the polarized CMB signal at almost every relevant frequency. Future experiments, like the LiteBIRD space-borne mission, aim at measuring the CMB B-mode signal with high accuracy to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio r at the 10−3 level. We present a method to study the photometric calibration requirement needed to minimize the leakage of polarized Galactic foreground signals into CMB polarization maps for a multi-frequency CMB experiment. We applied this method to the LiteBIRD case, and we found precision requirements for the photometric calibration in the range ∼10−4–2.5×10−3 depending on the frequency band. Under the assumption that the detectors are uncorrelated, we found requirements per detector in the range ∼0.18×10−2–2.0×10−2. Finally, we relate the calibration requirements to the band-pass resolution to define constraints for a few representative band-pass responses: Δν∼0.2–2 GHz.

Combining ILC and moment expansion techniques for extracting average-sky signals and CMB anisotropies

Abstract The method of weighted addition of multi-frequency maps, more commonly referred to as Internal Linear Combination (ILC), has been extensively employed in the measurement of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and its secondaries along with similar application in 21cm data analysis. Here we argue and demonstrate that ILC methods can also be applied to data from absolutely-calibrated CMB experiments to extract average-sky signals in addition to the conventional CMB anisotropies. The performance of the simple ILC method is, however, limited, but can be significantly improved by adding constraints informed by physics and existing empirical information. In recent work, a moment description has been introduced as a technique of carrying out high precision modeling of foregrounds in the presence of inevitable averaging effects. We combine these two approaches to construct a heavily constrained form of the ILC, dubbed MILC, which can be used to recover tiny monopolar spectral distortion signals in the presence of realistic foregrounds and instrumental noise. This is a first demonstration for measurements of the monopolar and anisotropic spectral distortion signals using ILC and extended moment methods. We also show that CMB anisotropy measurements can be improved, reducing foreground biases and signal uncertainties when using the MILC. While here we focus on CMB spectral distortions, the scope extends to the 21cm monopole signal and B-mode analysis. We briefly discuss augmentations that need further study to reach the full potential of the method.

On the Impact of Random Residual Calibration Error on the Gibbs ILC CMB Estimates over Large Angular Scales

Abstract Residual errors in calibration coefficients corresponding to observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps are an important issue when estimating a pure CMB signal. These errors in the input-foreground-contaminated CMB maps, if not properly taken into account in a component separation method, may lead to bias in the cleaned CMB map and estimated CMB angular power spectrum. But the inability to exactly determine the calibration coefficients corresponding to each observed CMB map from a multifrequency CMB experiment makes it very difficult to incorporate their exact and actual values during the component separation method. Hence, the effect of any random and residual calibration error in the cleaned CMB map and its angular power spectrum of a component separation problem can only be understood by performing detailed Monte Carlo simulations. In this paper, we investigate the impact of using input-observed CMB maps with random calibration errors on the posterior density of a cleaned CMB map and theoretical CMB angular power spectrum over large angular scales of the sky following the Gibbs Internal-Linear-Combination (ILC) method. By performing detailed Monte Carlo simulations of WMAP and Planck temperature anisotropy observations, including their estimate on calibration errors, we show that the best-fit map corresponding to the posterior maximum is minimally biased in the Gibbs ILC method by a CMB normalization bias and residual foreground bias. The residual calibration-induced error in the best-fit power spectrum causes an overall 6% increase of the net error when added in quadrature with the cosmic-variance-induced error.

Constraining cosmic polarization rotation and implications for primordial B-modes

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 analysis techniques to constrain this effect using Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarisation observations. We investigate two different methods of constraining direction dependent birefringence for present and future CMB experiments including BICEP/Keck, Simons Observatory (SO), and LiteBIRD. Specifically we compare the constraints placed on anisotropic CB from a quadratic estimator technique to those derived from estimates of the B-mode power-spectrum for the three different experiments. The constraints derived from estimates of the B-mode power spectrum are found to be comparable to those derived from quadratic estimator for BICEP/Keck and SO, but not LiteBIRD due to its larger sky coverage. These forecasted upper bounds for CB are converted to constraints on primordial magnetic fields, and the coupling between photons and pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons. Finally we show that even with the best constraints on CB, for the respective experiments, the potentially induced B-mode power can act as a significant contaminant in the prospective measurement of primordial B-modes.

Planck 2018 results

This paper presents the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) data processing procedures for the Planck 2018 release. Major improvements in mapmaking have been achieved since the previous Planck 2015 release, many of which were used and described already in an intermediate paper dedicated to the Planck polarized data at low multipoles. These improvements enabled the first significant measurement of the reionization optical depth parameter using Planck-HFI data. This paper presents an extensive analysis of systematic effects, including the use of end-to-end simulations to facilitate their removal and characterize the residuals. The polarized data, which presented a number of known problems in the 2015 Planck release, are very significantly improved, especially the leakage from intensity to polarization. Calibration, based on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole, is now extremely accurate and in the frequency range 100–353 GHz reduces intensity-to-polarization leakage caused by calibration mismatch. The Solar dipole direction has been determined in the three lowest HFI frequency channels to within one arc minute, and its amplitude has an absolute uncertainty smaller than 0.35 μK, an accuracy of order 10−4. This is a major legacy from the Planck HFI for future CMB experiments. The removal of bandpass leakage has been improved for the main high-frequency foregrounds by extracting the bandpass-mismatch coefficients for each detector as part of the mapmaking process; these values in turn improve the intensity maps. This is a major change in the philosophy of “frequency maps”, which are now computed from single detector data, all adjusted to the same average bandpass response for the main foregrounds. End-to-end simulations have been shown to reproduce very well the relative gain calibration of detectors, as well as drifts within a frequency induced by the residuals of the main systematic effect (analogue-to-digital convertor non-linearity residuals). Using these simulations, we have been able to measure and correct the small frequency calibration bias induced by this systematic effect at the 10−4 level. There is no detectable sign of a residual calibration bias between the first and second acoustic peaks in the CMB channels, at the 10−3 level.

Planck2018 results

The study of polarized dust emission has become entwined with the analysis of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization in the quest for the curl-likeB-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves and the low-multipoleE-mode polarization associated with the reionization of the Universe. We used the newPlanckPR3 maps to characterize Galactic dust emission at high latitudes as a foreground to the CMB polarization and use end-to-end simulations to compute uncertainties and assess the statistical significance of our measurements. We presentPlanckEE,BB, andTEpower spectra of dust polarization at 353 GHz for a set of six nested high-Galactic-latitude sky regions covering from 24 to 71% of the sky. We present power-law fits to the angular power spectra, yielding evidence for statistically significant variations of the exponents over sky regions and a difference between the values for theEEandBBspectra, which for the largest sky region areαEE = −2.42 ± 0.02 andαBB = −2.54 ± 0.02, respectively. The spectra show that theTEcorrelation andE/Bpower asymmetry discovered byPlanckextend to low multipoles that were not included in earlierPlanckpolarization papers due to residual data systematics. We also report evidence for a positiveTBdust signal. Combining data fromPlanckand WMAP, we have determined the amplitudes and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of polarized foregrounds, including the correlation between dust and synchrotron polarized emission, for the six sky regions as a function of multipole. This quantifies the challenge of the component-separation procedure that is required for measuring the low-ℓreionization CMBE-mode signal and detecting the reionization and recombination peaks of primordial CMBBmodes. The SED of polarized dust emission is fit well by a single-temperature modified black-body emission law from 353 GHz to below 70 GHz. For a dust temperature of 19.6 K, the mean dust spectral index for dust polarization isβdP= 1.53±0.02. The difference between indices for polarization and total intensity isβdP−βdI= 0.05±0.03. By fitting multi-frequency cross-spectra betweenPlanckdata at 100, 143, 217, and 353 GHz, we examine the correlation of the dust polarization maps across frequency. We find no evidence for a loss of correlation and provide lower limits to the correlation ratio that are tighter than values we derive from the correlation of the 217- and 353 GHz maps alone. If thePlancklimit on decorrelation for the largest sky region applies to the smaller sky regions observed by sub-orbital experiments, then frequency decorrelation of dust polarization might not be a problem for CMB experiments aiming at a primordialB-mode detection limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratior ≃ 0.01 at the recombination peak. However, thePlancksensitivity precludes identifying how difficult the component-separation problem will be for more ambitious experiments targeting lower limits onr.

Remote dipole field reconstruction with dusty galaxies

The kinetic Sunyaev Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect, cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies induced by scattering of CMB photons from free electrons, forms the dominant blackbody component of the CMB on small angular scales. Future CMB experiments on the resolution/sensitivity frontier will measure the kSZ effect with high significance. Through the cross-correlation with tracers of structure, it will be possible to reconstruct the remote CMB dipole field (e.g. the CMB dipole observed at different locations in the Universe) using the technique of kSZ tomography. In this paper, we derive a quadratic estimator for the remote dipole field using the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) as a tracer of structure. We forecast the ability of current and next-generation measurements of the CMB and CIB to perform kSZ tomography. The total signal-to-noise of the reconstruction is order unity for current datasets, and can improve by a factor of up to $10^3$ for future datasets, based on statistical error only. The CIB-based reconstruction is highly correlated with a galaxy survey-based reconstruction of the remote dipole field, which can be exploited to improve constraints on cosmological parameters and models for the CIB and distribution of baryons.

Reducing the Susceptibility of Lumped-Element KIDs to Two-Level System Effects

Arrays of lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) optically coupled through an antenna-coupled transmission line are a promising candidate for future cosmic microwave background experiments. However, the dielectric materials used for the microstrip architecture are known to degrade the performance of superconducting resonators. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of microstrip coupling to a LEKID, focusing on a systematic study of the effect of depositing amorphous silicon nitride on a LEKID. The discrete and spatially separated inductive and capacitive regions of the LEKID allow us to vary the degree of dielectric coverage and determine the limitations of the microstrip coupling architecture. We show that by careful removal of dielectric from regions of high electric field in the capacitor, there is minimal degradation in dielectric loss tangent of a partially covered lumped-element resonator. We present the effects on the resonant frequency and noise power spectral density and, using the dark responsivity, provide an estimate for the resulting detector sensitivity.

Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Component-separated maps of CMB temperature and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect

Optimal analyses of many signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) require map-level extraction of individual components in the microwave sky, rather than measurements at the power spectrum level alone. To date, nearly all map-level component separation in CMB analyses has been performed exclusively using satellite data. In this paper, we implement a component separation method based on the internal linear combination (ILC) approach which we have designed to optimally account for the anisotropic noise (in the 2D Fourier domain) often found in ground-based CMB experiments. Using this method, we combine multi-frequency data from the Planck satellite and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) to construct the first wide-area, arcminute-resolution component-separated maps (covering approximately 2100 sq. deg.) of the CMB temperature anisotropy and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect sourced by the inverse-Compton scattering of CMB photons off hot, ionized gas. Our ILC pipeline allows for explicit deprojection of various contaminating signals, including a modified blackbody approximation of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) spectral energy distribution. The cleaned CMB maps will be a useful resource for CMB lensing reconstruction, kinematic SZ cross-correlations, and primordial non-Gaussianity studies. The tSZ maps will be used to study the pressure profiles of galaxies, groups, and clusters through cross-correlations with halo catalogs, with dust contamination controlled via CIB deprojection. The data products described in this paper are available on LAMBDA.

Noise angular power spectrum of gravitational wave background experiments

We construct a model for the angular power spectrum of the instrumental noise in interferometer networks mapping gravitational wave backgrounds (GWBs) as a function of detector noise properties, network configuration and scan strategy. We use the model to calculate the noise power spectrum for current and future ground-based experiments, as well as for planned space missions. We present our results in a language similar to that used in cosmic microwave background and intensity mapping experiments, and connect the formalism with the sensitivity curves that are common lore in GWB analyses. Our formalism is implemented in a lightweight python module that we make publicly available at https://github.com/damonge/schNell.

Towards testing CMB anomalies using the kinetic and polarized Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effects

Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies on large angular scales have uncovered a number of anomalous features of marginal statistical significance, such as a hemispherical power asymmetry, lack of power on large angular scales, and features in the power spectrum. Because the primary CMB temperature has been measured at the cosmic variance limit, determining if these anomalies are hints of new physics as opposed to foregrounds, systematics, or simply statistical flukes, requires new observables. In this paper, we highlight the potential contribution that future measurements of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (kSZ) and the polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect (pSZ) could make in determining the physical nature of several CMB anomalies. The kSZ and pSZ effects, temperature and polarization anisotropies induced by scattering from free electrons in the reionized Universe, are the dominant blackbody contribution to the CMB on small angular scales. Using the technique of SZ tomography, measurements of kSZ and pSZ effects can be combined with galaxy surveys to reconstruct the remote CMB dipole and quadrupole fields, providing a 3-dimensional probe of large scale modes inside our Hubble volume. Building on previous work, we forecast the additional constraining power that these observables might offer for a representative set of anomaly models. We find that the remote CMB dipole and quadrupole contain a similar amount of information on anomaly models as the primary CMB polarization. The information from CMB temperature, polarization, and the remote dipole and quadrupole fields is complementary, and the full set of observables can improve constraints on anomaly models by a factor of $\sim 2-4$ using next-generation CMB experiments and galaxy surveys. This could be sufficient to definitively establish the physical origin of several CMB anomalies.

Minimizing gravitational lensing contributions to the primordial bispectrum covariance

The next generation of ground-based CMB experiments aim to measure temperature and polarization fluctuations up to $\ell_{\rm max} \approx 5000$ over half of the sky. Combined with Planck data on large scales, this will provide improved constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity. However, the impressive resolution of these experiments will come at a price. Besides signal confusion from galactic foregrounds, extra-galactic foregrounds and late-time gravitational effects, gravitational lensing will introduce large non-Gaussianity that can become the leading contribution to the bispectrum covariance through the connected 4-point function. Here, we compute this effect analytically for the first time on the full sky for both temperature and polarization. We compare our analytical results with those obtained directly from map-based simulations of the CMB sky for several levels of instrumental noise. Of the standard shapes considered in the literature, the local shape is most affected, resulting in a 35\% increase of the estimator standard deviation for an experiment like the Simons Observatory (SO) and a 110\% increase for a cosmic-variance limited experiment, including both temperature and polarization modes up to $\ell_{\rm max} = 3800$. Because of the nature of the lensing 4-point function, the impact on other shapes is reduced while still non negligible for the orthogonal shape. Two possible avenues to reduce the non-Gaussian contribution to the covariance are proposed. First by marginalizing over lensing contributions, such as the ISW-lensing 3pt function in temperature, and second by delensing the CMB. We show the latter method can remove almost all extra covariance, reducing the effect to below $<$5\% for local bispectra. At the same time, delensing would remove signal biases from secondaries induced by lensing, such as ISW-lensing.

Determination of miscalibrated polarization angles from observed cosmic microwave background and foreground EB power spectra: Application to partial-sky observation

Abstract We study a strategy to determine miscalibrated polarization angles of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments using the observed $EB$ polarization power spectra of CMB and Galactic foreground emission. We apply the methodology of Y. Minami et al. (Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2019, 083E02, 2019), developed for full-sky observations to ground-based experiments such as Simons Observatory. We take into account the $E$-to-$B$ leakage and $\ell$-to-$\ell$ covariance due to partial sky coverage using the public code NaMaster. We show that our method yields an unbiased estimate of miscalibrated angles. Our method also enables simultaneous determination of miscalibrated angles and the intrinsic $EB$ power spectrum of polarized dust emission when the latter is proportional to $\sqrt{C_\ell^{EE}C_\ell^{BB}}$ and $C_\ell^{BB}$ is proportional to $C_\ell^{EE}$.

Mapping the relativistic electron gas temperature across the sky

ABSTRACT With increasing sensitivity, angular resolution, and frequency coverage, future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments like PICO will allow us to access new information about galaxy clusters through the relativistic thermal Sunyaev–Zeldovich (SZ) effect. We will be able to map the temperature of relativistic electrons across the entire sky, going well beyond a simple detection of the relativistic SZ effect by cluster stacking methods that currently define the state-of-the-art. Here, we propose a new map-based approach utilizing SZ-temperature moment expansion and constrained-ILC methods to extract electron gas temperature maps from foreground-obscured CMB data. This delivers a new independent map-based observable, the electron temperature power spectrum $T_{\rm e}^{yy}(\ell)$, which can be used to constrain cosmology in addition to the Compton-y power spectrum $C_\ell ^{yy}(\ell)$ . We find that PICO has the required sensitivity, resolution, and frequency coverage to accurately map the electron gas temperature of galaxy clusters across the full sky, covering a broad range of angular scales. Frequency coverage at $\nu \gtrsim 300\, {\rm GHz}$ plays an important role for extracting the relativistic SZ effect in the presence of foregrounds. For Coma, PICO will allow us to directly reconstruct the electron temperature profile using the relativistic SZ effect. Coma’s average electron temperature will be measured to 10σ significance after foreground removal using PICO. Low angular resolution CMB experiment like LiteBIRD could achieve 2σ to 3σ measurement of the electron temperature of this largest cluster. Our analysis highlights a new spectroscopic window into the thermodynamic properties of galaxy clusters and the diffuse electron gas at large angular scales.

CMB Shadows: The Effect of Interstellar Extinction on Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization and Temperature Anisotropy

Abstract We evaluate the degradation of the accuracy of the component separation between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and foreground components caused by neglect of absorption of the CMB’s monopole component by the galactic interstellar matter. The amplitude of the temperature anisotropy caused by the CMB shadow, due to dust components, is about 1 μK. This value is comparable to the required noise level necessary to probe non-Gaussianity studies with upcoming CMB experiments. In addition, the amplitude of the polarization caused by the CMB shadow due to dust is comparable to or larger than the rms value of the CMB B-mode polarization, imprinted by primordial gravitational waves. We show that applying a single-power-law model as the dust spectrum to observed multifrequency data introduces systematic errors, which are comparable to or larger than the required noise level for forthcoming CMB B-mode polarization experiments. Deducing the intrinsic spectrum of dust emission from the submillimeter wave band data reduces the systematic error to below the required noise level. However, this method requires dust temperature measurements with an accuracy of better than a few percent. We conclude that the CMB shadow due to dust must be considered in future CMB missions for achieving their targeted sensitivity. Our results will be important to detect the primordial CMB B-mode polarization, with the amplitude of the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r = 10−3.

Small Aperture Telescopes for the Simons Observatory

The Simons Observatory (SO) is an upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment located on Cerro Toco, Chile, that will map the microwave sky in temperature and polarization in six frequency bands spanning 27 to 285 GHz. SO will consist of one 6-m large aperture telescope fielding $$\sim$$ 30,000 detectors and an array of three 0.42-m small aperture telescopes (SATs) fielding an additional 30,000 detectors. This synergy will allow for the extremely sensitive characterization of the CMB over angular scales ranging from an arcmin to tens of degrees, enabling a wide range of scientific output. Here we focus on the SATs targeting degree angular scales with successive dichroic instruments observing at mid-frequency (MF: 93/145 GHz), ultra-high-frequency (UHF: 225/285 GHz), and low-frequency (LF: 27/39 GHz). The three SATs will be able to map $$\sim$$ 10% of the sky to a noise level of $$\sim$$ $$2\,\upmu {\hbox {K}}$$ -arcmin when combining 93 and 145 GHz. The multiple frequency bands will allow the CMB to be separated from galactic foregrounds (primarily synchrotron and dust), with the primary science goal of characterizing the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, at a target level of $$\sigma (r) \approx 0.003$$ .

Constraining axion inflation with gravitational waves from preheating

We study gravitational wave production from gauge preheating in a variety of inflationary models, detailing its dependence on both the energy scale and the shape of the potential. We show that preheating into Abelian gauge fields generically leads to a large gravitational wave background that contributes significantly to the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe, $N_\mathrm{eff}$. We demonstrate that the efficiency of gravitational wave production is correlated with the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$. In particular, we show that efficient gauge preheating in models whose tensor-to-scalar ratio would be detected by next-generation cosmic microwave background experiments ($r \gtrsim 10^{-3}$) will be either detected through its contribution to $N_\mathrm{eff}$ or ruled out. Furthermore, we show that bounds on $N_\mathrm{eff}$ provide the most sensitive probe of the possible axial coupling of the inflaton to gauge fields regardless of the potential.