Measuring the reionization optical depth without large-scale CMB polarization
arxiv(2023)
摘要
We study the possibility of measuring the optical depth at reionization,
τ, without relying on large-scale Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
polarization. Our analysis is driven by the need to obtain competitive
measurements that can validate the state-of-the-art constraints on this
parameter, widely based on E-mode polarization measurements at ℓ≤ 30.
This need is partially motivated by the typical concerns regarding anomalies
observed in the Planck large-scale CMB data as well as by the remarkable fact
that, excluding these latter, τ consistently exhibits correlations with
anomalous parameters, such as A_ lens and Ω_k, suggesting that
slightly higher values of the optical depth at reionization could significantly
alleviate or even eliminate anomalies. Within the ΛCDM model, our most
constraining result is τ = 0.080 ± 0.012, obtained by combining Planck
temperature and polarization data at ℓ > 30, the Atacama Cosmology
Telescope (ACT) and Planck measurements of the lensing potential, Baryon
Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), and Type-Ia supernova data from the Pantheon+
catalogue. Notably, using only ACT temperature, polarization, and lensing data
in combination with BAO and supernovae, we obtain τ = 0.076 ± 0.015,
which is entirely independent of Planck. The relative precision of these
results is approaching the constraints based on large-scale CMB polarization
(τ = 0.054 ± 0.008). Despite the overall agreement, we report a slight
1.8σ shift towards larger values of τ. We also test how these
results change by extending the cosmological model. While in many extensions
they remain robust, in general obtaining precise measurements of τ may
become significantly more challenging.
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