MEASUREMENT OF COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND POLARIZATION POWER SPECTRA FROM TWO YEARS OF BICEP DATA

Journal Article · Wed Mar 10 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/711/2/1123· OSTI ID:21394315

Chiang, H C; Barkats, D; Bock, J J; Hristov, V V; Jones, W C; Kovac, J M; Lange, A E; Mason, P V; Matsumura, T ^[1]; Ade, P A. R. ^[2]; Battle, J O; Dowell, C D; Nguyen, H T ^[3]; Bierman, E M; Keating, B G ^[4]; Duband, L ^[5]; Hivon, E F ^[6]; Holzapfel, W L ^[7]; Kuo, C L ^[8]; Leitch, E M ^[9]

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1. Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wales, Cardiff, CF24 3YB, Wales (United Kingdom)
3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
4. Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 (United States)
5. SBT, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Grenoble (France)
6. Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Paris (France)
7. Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
8. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305 (United States)
9. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)

Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) is a bolometric polarimeter designed to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. During three seasons of observing at the South Pole (2006 through 2008), BICEP mapped {approx}2% of the sky chosen to be uniquely clean of polarized foreground emission. Here, we present initial results derived from a subset of the data acquired during the first two years. We present maps of temperature, Stokes Q and U, E and B modes, and associated angular power spectra. We demonstrate that the polarization data are self-consistent by performing a series of jackknife tests. We study potential systematic errors in detail and show that they are sub-dominant to the statistical errors. We measure the E-mode angular power spectrum with high precision at 21 <= l <= 335, detecting for the first time the peak expected at l {approx} 140. The measured E-mode spectrum is consistent with expectations from a LAMBDACDM model, and the B-mode spectrum is consistent with zero. The tensor-to-scalar ratio derived from the B-mode spectrum is r = 0.02{sup +0.31}{sub -0.26}, or r < 0.72 at 95% confidence, the first meaningful constraint on the inflationary gravitational wave background to come directly from CMB B-mode polarization.

• OSTI ID: 21394315
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 711, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/711/2/1123; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BACKGROUND RADIATION
BOLOMETERS
COSMOLOGY
EMISSION
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
POLARIMETERS
POLARIZATION
RELICT RADIATION
SPECTRA
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MICROWAVE RADIATION
RADIATIONS