A New Limit on CMB Circular Polarization from SPIDER

• Published in: The Astrophysical Journal
• Main Authors: Nagy, J. M., Bock, J. J., Doré, O., Hristov, V. V., Mason, P. V., Moncelsi, L., Morford, T. A., Trangsrud, A., Tucker, R. S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Astronomical Society 2017
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/79749/; https://authors.library.caltech.edu/79749/1/Nagy_2017_ApJ_844_151.pdf; https://authors.library.caltech.edu/79749/2/1704.00215.pdf; https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170802-102243947

We present a new upper limit on cosmic microwave background (CMB) circular polarization from the 2015 flight of SPIDER, a balloon-borne telescope designed to search for B-mode linear polarization from cosmic inflation. Although the level of circular polarization in the CMB is predicted to be very small, experimental limits provide a valuable test of the underlying models. By exploiting the nonzero circular-to-linear polarization coupling of the half-wave plate polarization modulators, data from SPIDER's 2015 Antarctic flight provide a constraint on Stokes V at 95 and 150 GHz in the range 33 < ℓ < 307. No other limits exist over this full range of angular scales, and SPIDER improves on the previous limit by several orders of magnitude, providing 95% C.L. constraints on ℓ(ℓ + 1)C^(VV)_ ℓ/(2π) ranging from 141 to 255 μK^2 at 150 GHz for a thermal CMB spectrum. As linear CMB polarization experiments become increasingly sensitive, the techniques described in this paper can be applied to obtain even stronger constraints on circular polarization.