Reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum using temperature and polarisation data from multiple experiments

Journal Article · Wed Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2009/07/011· OSTI ID:22273177

Nicholson, Gavin

We develop a method to reconstruct the primordial power spectrum, P(k), using both temperature and polarisation data from the joint analysis of a number of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations. The method is an extension of the Richardson-Lucy algorithm, first applied in this context by Shafieloo and Souradeep [1]. We show how the inclusion of polarisation measurements can decrease the uncertainty in the reconstructed power spectrum. In particular, the polarisation data can constrain oscillations in the spectrum more effectively than total intensity only measurements. We apply the estimator to a compilation of current CMB results. The reconstructed spectrum is consistent with the best-fit power spectrum although we find evidence for a 'dip' in the power on scales k ≈ 0.002 Mpc{sup −1}. This feature appears to be associated with the WMAP power in the region 18 ≤ l ≤ 26 which is consistently below best-fit models. We also forecast the reconstruction for a simulated, Planck-like [2] survey including sample variance limited polarisation data.

• OSTI ID: 22273177
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Journal Issue: 07 Vol. 2009; ISSN 1475-7516
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ALGORITHMS
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMOLOGY
ENERGY SPECTRA
OSCILLATIONS
POLARIZATION
RELICT RADIATION