open access publication

Article, 2024

B-mode polarization forecasts for GreenPol

Astronomy & Astrophysics, ISSN 0004-6361, 1432-0746, Volume 684, Page a128, 10.1051/0004-6361/202347393

Contributors

Fuskeland, Unni (Corresponding author) [1] Kaplan, A [2] Wehus, Ingunn Kathrine 0000-0003-3821-7275 [1] Eriksen, Hans Kristian Kamfjord 0000-0003-2332-5281 [1] Christensen, P R [3] Von Hausegger, Sebastian [3] [4] Liu, H. [3] [5] [6] Lubin, Philip M [2] Meinhold, P R [2] Naselsky, Pavel D 0000-0002-8891-0273 [3] Thommesen, H [1] Zonca, A [7]

Affiliations

  1. [1] University of Oslo
  2. [NORA names: Norway; Europe, Non-EU; Nordic; OECD];
  3. [2] University of California, Santa Barbara
  4. [NORA names: United States; America, North; OECD];
  5. [3] University of Copenhagen
  6. [NORA names: KU University of Copenhagen; University; Denmark; Europe, EU; Nordic; OECD];
  7. [4] University of Oxford
  8. [NORA names: United Kingdom; Europe, Non-EU; OECD];
  9. [5] Anhui University
  10. [NORA names: China; Asia, East];

Abstract

We present tensor-to-scalar ratio forecasts for GreenPol, a hypothetical ground-based B -mode experiment aiming to survey the cleanest regions of the Northern Galactic Hemisphere at five frequencies between 10 and 44 GHz. Its primary science goal would be to measure large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization fluctuations at multipoles ℓ ≲ 500, and thereby constrain the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio r . The observations for the suggested experiment would take place at the Summit Station (72 ° 34N, 38 ° 27W) on Greenland, at an altitude of 3216 m above sea level. For this paper we simulated various experimental setups, and derived limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio after CMB component separation using a Bayesian component separation implementation called Commander. When combining the proposed experiment with Planck HFI observations for constraining polarized thermal dust emission, we found a projected limit of r < 0.02 at 95% confidence for the baseline configuration. This limit is very robust with respect to a range of important experimental parameters, including sky coverage, detector weighting, foreground priors, among others. Overall, GreenPol would have the possibility to provide deep CMB polarization measurements of the Northern Galactic Hemisphere at low frequencies.

Keywords

B-mode experiments, B-mode polarization, CMB polarization measurements, Galactic hemisphere, Greenland, Northern, Summit Station, altitude, background, baseline, baseline configuration, command, component separation, confidence, configuration, cosmic microwave background, coverage, detector, detector weight, dust emission, emission, experimental parameters, experimental setup, experiments, fluctuations, foreground priors, frequency, goal, hemisphere, implementation, levels, limitations, low frequency, measurements, microwave background, multipole, northern Galactic hemisphere, observations, parameters, polarization, polarization fluctuations, polarization measurements, polarized thermal dust emission, primary science goal, priors, ratio, ratio R, region, science goals, sea, sea level, separation, separation implementation, setup, sky, sky coverage, stations, summit, tensor-to-scalar ratio, tensor-to-scalar ratio r, thermal dust emission, weight

Funders

  • National Science Foundation
  • European Research Council
  • The Research Council of Norway
  • Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
  • European Commission
  • The Velux Foundations

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