MEASUREMENTS OF E-MODE POLARIZATION AND TEMPERATURE-E-MODE CORRELATION IN THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND FROM 100 SQUARE DEGREES OF SPTPOL DATA

Journal Article · Mon May 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/805/1/36· OSTI ID:1329226

Crites, A. T.; Henning, J. W.; Ade, P. A. R.; Aird, K. A.; Austermann, J. E.; Beall, J. A.; Bender, A. N.; Benson, B. A.; Bleem, L. E.; Carlstrom, J. E.; Chang, C. L.; Chiang, H. C.; Cho, H-M.; Citron, R.; Crawford, T. M.; Haan, T. de; Dobbs, M. A.; Everett, W.; Gallicchio, J.; Gao, J. ; George, E. M.; Gilbert, A.; Halverson, N. W.; Hanson, D.; Harrington, N.; Hilton, G. C.; Holder, G. P.; Holzapfel, W. L.; Hoover, S.; Hou, Z.; Hrubes, J. D.; Huang, N.; Hubmayr, J.; Irwin, K. D.; Keisler, R.; Knox, L.; Lee, A. T.; Leitch, E. M.; Li, D.; Liang, C.; Luong-Van, D.; McMahon, J. J.; Mehl, J.; Meyer, S. S.; Mocanu, L.; Montroy, T. E.; Natoli, T.; Nibarger, J. P.; Novosad, V.; Padin, S.; Pryke, C.; Reichardt, C. L.; Ruhl, J. E.; Saliwanchik, B. R.; Sayre, J. T.; Schaffer, K. K.; Smecher, G.; Stark, A. A.; Story, K. T.; Tucker, C.; Vanderlinde, K.; Vieira, J. D.; Wang, G.; Whitehorn, N.; Yefremenko, V.; Zahn, O.

We present measurements of E-mode polarization and temperature-E-mode correlation in the cosmic microwave background using data from the first season of observations with SPTpol, the polarization-sensitive receiver currently installed on the South Pole Telescope (SPT). The observations used in this work cover 100 $${{{\rm deg} }^{2}}$$ of sky with arcminute resolution at 150 GHz. We report the E-mode angular auto-power spectrum (EE) and the temperature-E-mode angular cross-power spectrum (TE) over the multipole range 500 < ℓ ≤ 5000. These power spectra improve on previous measurements in the high-ℓ (small-scale) regime. We fit the combination of the SPTpol power spectra, data from Planck, and previous SPT measurements with a six-parameter ΛCDM cosmological model. We find that the best-fit parameters are consistent with previous results. The improvement in high-ℓ sensitivity over previous measurements leads to a significant improvement in the limit on polarized point-source power: after masking sources brighter than 50 mJy in unpolarized flux at 150 GHz, we find a 95% confidence upper limit on unclustered point-source power in the EE spectrum of $${{D}_{\ell }}=\ell (\ell +1){{C}_{\ell }}/2\pi \lt 0.40\ \mu {{{\rm K}}^{2}}$$ at $$\ell =3000$$, indicating that future EE measurements will not be limited by power from unclustered point sources in the multipole range $$\ell \lt 3600$$, and possibly much higher in $$\ell .$$

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Contributing Organization: SPT
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1329226
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB-14-545-AE; arXiv:1411.1042; 1325961
• Journal Information: The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 805, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4357
• Publisher: Institute of Physics (IOP)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS