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Precision of future experiments measuring primordial tensor fluctuation

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  • Special Topic: BICEP2 and Beyond
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Abstract

Recently the second phase of Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) claimed a detection of the tensor-to-scalar ratio (r) of primordial fluctuation at 5ρ confidence level. If it is true, this large and measurable amplitude (r ∼- 0.2) of B-mode polarization indicates that it is possible to measure the shape of CMB B-mode polarization with future experiments. Given the current understanding of the experimental noise and foreground contamination, we forecast the precision of r and the tensor spectral index n t measurements from Planck, Spider and POLARBEAR with n t as a free parameter. We quantitatively determine the signal-to-noise of the measurement in r-n t parameter space for the three experiments. The forecasted signal-to-noise ratio of the B-mode polarization somewhat depends on n t, but strongly depends on the true value of r.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK

    Yi Wang

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada

    YinZhe Ma

Authors
  1. Yi Wang
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  2. YinZhe Ma
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Correspondence to Yi Wang or YinZhe Ma.

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Wang, Y., Ma, Y. Precision of future experiments measuring primordial tensor fluctuation. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 57, 1466–1470 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-014-5510-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-014-5510-5

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