English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can help probe thefundamental physics behind cosmic inflation via the measurement of primordial$B$ modes. As this requires exquisite control over instrumental systematics,some next-generation CMB experiments plan to use a rotating half-wave plate(HWP) as polarization modulator. However, the HWP non-idealities, if notproperly treated in the analysis, can result in additional systematics. In thispaper, we present a simple, semi-analytical end-to-end model to propagate theHWP non-idealities through the macro-steps that make up any CMB experiment(observation of multi-frequency maps, foreground cleaning, and power spectraestimation) and compute the HWP-induced bias on the estimated tensor-to-scalarratio, $r$. We find that the effective polarization efficiency of the HWPsuppresses the polarization signal, leading to an underestimation of $r$.Laboratory measurements of the properties of the HWP can be used to calibratethis effect, but we show how gain calibration of the CMB temperature can alsobe used to partially mitigate it. On the basis of our findings, we present aset of recommendations for the HWP design that can help maximize the benefitsof gain calibration.

Impact of half-wave plate systematics on the measurement of CMB $B$-mode polarization