Simulation of the analysis of interferometric microwave background polarization data

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an end-to-end simulation pipeline for interferometric observations of the cosmic microwave background polarization, evaluating systematic errors and applying Gibbs sampling for power spectrum estimation and image reconstruction.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive simulation framework and applies Gibbs sampling techniques for both power spectrum estimation and image reconstruction in interferometric CMB polarization data.

Findings

Systematic errors must be tightly controlled for primordial B mode detection.

Gibbs sampling effectively reconstructs images from interferometric visibilities.

The pipeline aids in understanding observational requirements for CMB polarization studies.

Abstract

We present results from an end-to-end simulation pipeline interferometric observations of cosmic microwave background polarization. We use both maximum-likelihood and Gibbs sampling techniques to estimate the power spectrum. In addition, we use Gibbs sampling for image reconstruction from interferometric visibilities. The results indicate the level to which various systematic errors (e.g., pointing errors, gain errors, beam shape errors, cross- polarization) must be controlled in order to successfully detect and characterize primordial B modes as well as other scientific goals. In addition, we show that Gibbs sampling is an effective method of image reconstruction for interferometric data in other astrophysical contexts.