New constraints on cosmic polarization rotation from the ACTPol cosmic microwave background B-Mode polarization observation and the BICEP2 constraint update

TL;DR

This paper uses recent ACTPol, BICEP2, and Planck data to constrain cosmic polarization rotation, finding no significant detection and updating previous limits on CPR fluctuations.

Contribution

It provides new constraints on cosmic polarization rotation using the latest CMB polarization data, improving the bounds on CPR angle and fluctuation.

Findings

CPR angle constrained to less than 14 mrad from EB spectra.

CPR fluctuation constrained to less than 29.3 mrad from BB spectra.

Updated combined CPR fluctuation limit with ACTPol, BICEP2, and POLARBEAR data.

Abstract

Recently ACTPol has measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode and E-mode polarizations and obtained TE, EE, BB, TB and EB power spectra in the multipole range 225-8725. In our previous paper (Ap. J. 792 (2014) 35 [Paper I]), we have analyzed jointly the results of three experiments on the CMB B-mode polarization -- SPTpol, POLARBEAR and BICEP2 to include in the model, in addition to the gravitational lensing and the inflationary gravitational waves components, also the fluctuation effects induced by the cosmic polarization rotation (CPR), if it exists within the upper limits at the time. In this paper, we fit both the mean CPR angle <{\alpha}> and its fluctuation <{\delta}{\alpha}2> from the new ACTPol data, and update our fitting of CPR fluctuations using BICEP2 data taking the new Planck dust measurement results into consideration. We follow the method of Paper I. The mean CPR angle is constrained from the EB correlation power spectra to |<{\alpha}>| < 14 mrad (0.8{\deg}) and the fluctuation (rms) is constrained from the BB correlation power spectra to <{\delta}{\alpha}2>1/2 < 29.3 mrad (1.68{\deg}). Assuming that the polarization angle of Tau A does not change from 89.2 to 146 GHz, the ACTPol data give <{\alpha}> = 1.0 {\pm} 0.63{\deg}. These results suggest that the inclusion of the present ACTPol data is consistent with no CPR detection. With the new Planck dust measurement, we update our fits of the BICEP2 CPR fluctuation constraint to be 32.8 mrad (1.88{\deg}). The joint ACTpol-BICEP2-POLARBEAR CPR fluctuation constraint is 23.7 mrad (1.36{\deg}).