Abstract
We discuss a systematic effect associated with measuring polarization with a continuously rotating half-wave plate (HWP). The effect was identified with the data from the E and B Experiment, which was a balloon-borne instrument designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as well as that from Galactic dust. The data show polarization fractions larger than 10%, while less than 3% were expected from instrumental polarization. We give evidence that the excess polarization is due to detector nonlinearity in the presence of a continuously rotating HWP. The nonlinearity couples intensity signals to polarization. We develop a map-based method to remove the excess polarization. Applying this method to the 150 (250) GHz band data, we find that 81% (92%) of the excess polarization was removed. Characterization and mitigation of this effect are important for future experiments aiming to measure the CMB B-modes with a continuously rotating HWP.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 54 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 876 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- balloons
- cosmic background radiation
- instrumentation: polarimeters
- methods: data analysis
- polarization
- techniques: polarimetric