# CMB Polarization B-mode Delensing with SPTpol and Herschel

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to reduce gravitational lensing effects in CMB B-mode polarization maps using data from SPTpol and Herschel, improving the search for primordial gravitational waves.

## Contribution

It introduces a delensing technique combining SPTpol and Herschel data, achieving a 28% reduction in B-mode power and analyzing the limits of delensing efficiency.

## Key findings

- Achieved 28% reduction in B-mode power spectrum.
- Delensing efficiency limited mainly by lensing potential map noise.
- Robust results confirmed by simulations and systematics tests.

## Abstract

We present a demonstration of delensing the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization anisotropy. This process of reducing the gravitational-lensing generated B-mode component will become increasingly important for improving searches for the B modes produced by primordial gravitational waves. In this work, we delens B-mode maps constructed from multi-frequency SPTpol observations of a 90 deg$^2$ patch of sky by subtracting a B-mode template constructed from two inputs: SPTpol E-mode maps and a lensing potential map estimated from the $\textit{Herschel}$ $500\,\mu m$ map of the CIB. We find that our delensing procedure reduces the measured B-mode power spectrum by 28% in the multipole range $300 < \ell < 2300$; this is shown to be consistent with expectations from theory and simulations and to be robust against systematics. The null hypothesis of no delensing is rejected at $6.9 \sigma$. Furthermore, we build and use a suite of realistic simulations to study the general properties of the delensing process and find that the delensing efficiency achieved in this work is limited primarily by the noise in the lensing potential map. We demonstrate the importance of including realistic experimental non-idealities in the delensing forecasts used to inform instrument and survey-strategy planning of upcoming lower-noise experiments, such as CMB-S4.