4.8 Article

Improved Constraints on Cosmology and Foregrounds from BICEP2 and Keck Array Cosmic Microwave Background Data with Inclusion of 95 GHz Band

Journal

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
Volume 116, Issue 3, Pages -

Publisher

AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.031302

Keywords

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Funding

  1. National Science Foundation [ANT-1145172, ANT-1145143, ANT-1145248]
  2. Keck Foundation
  3. JPL Research and Technology Development Fund
  4. NASA [06-ARPA206-0040, 10-SAT10-0017]
  5. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation at Caltech
  6. Canada Foundation for Innovation grant
  7. U.S. DOE Office of Science
  8. Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
  9. Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1255358] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
  10. Division Of Physics
  11. Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1125897] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
  12. Office of Polar Programs (OPP)
  13. Directorate For Geosciences [1145172, 1145143] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
  14. STFC [ST/N000706/1, ST/K000926/1] Funding Source: UKRI
  15. Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/N000706/1] Funding Source: researchfish

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We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the BICEP2 and Keck Array cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments up to and including the 2014 observing season. This includes the first Keck Array observations at 95 GHz. The maps reach a depth of 50 nK deg in Stokes Q and U in the 150 GHz band and 127 nK deg in the 95 GHz band. We take auto-and cross-spectra between these maps and publicly available maps from WMAP and Planck at frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. An excess over lensed Lambda CDM is detected at modest significance in the 95 x 150 BB spectrum, and is consistent with the dust contribution expected from our previous work. No significant evidence for synchrotron emission is found in spectra such as 23 x 95, or for correlation between the dust and synchrotron sky patterns in spectra such as 23 x 353. We take the likelihood of all the spectra for a multicomponent model including lensed Lambda CDM, dust, synchrotron, and a possible contribution from inflationary gravitational waves (as parametrized by the tensor-to-scalar ratio r) using priors on the frequency spectral behaviors of dust and synchrotron emission from previous analyses of WMAP and Planck data in other regions of the sky. This analysis yields an upper limit r(0.05) < 0.09 at 95% confidence, which is robust to variations explored in analysis and priors. Combining these B-mode results with the (more model-dependent) constraints from Planck analysis of CMB temperature plus baryon acoustic oscillations and other data yields a combined limit r(0.05) < 0.07 at 95% confidence. These are the strongest constraints to date on inflationary gravitational waves.

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