3 years ago

# A Projected Estimate of the Reionization Optical Depth Using the CLASS Experiment's Sample-Variance Limited E-Mode Measurement.

Joseph R. Eimer, John W. Appel, Nathan J. Miller, Charles L. Bennett, Jeffrey Iuliano, Matthew Petroff, Tobias A. Marriage, Zhilei Xu, Ivan L. Padilla, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, Karwan Rostem, Aamir Ali, Bingjie Wang, Gary Hinshaw, Duncan J. Watts, David T. Chuss, Sumit Dahal, Kathleen Harrington, Edward J. Wollack

We analyze simulated maps of the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) experiment and recover a nearly cosmic-variance limited estimate of the reionization optical depth $\tau$. We use a power spectrum-based likelihood to simultaneously clean foregrounds and estimate cosmological parameters in multipole space. Using software specifically designed to constrain $\tau$, the amplitude of scalar fluctuations $A_s$, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, we demonstrate that the CLASS experiment will be able to estimate $\tau$ within a factor of two of the full-sky cosmic variance limit allowed by cosmic microwave background polarization measurements. Additionally, we discuss the role of CLASS's $\tau$ constraint in conjunction with gravitational lensing of the CMB on obtaining a $\gtrsim4\sigma$ measurement of the sum of the neutrino masses.

Publisher URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1801.01481

DOI: arXiv:1801.01481v2

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