Prof. David Alonso

Abstract:

We present forecasts for cosmological parameters from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) data measured by the stage-4 (S4) generation of ground-based experiments in combination with large-scale anisotropy data from the PIXIE satellite. We demonstrate the complementarity of the two experiments and focus on science targets that benefit from their combination. We show that a cosmic-variance-limited measurement of the optical depth to reionization provided by PIXIE, with error σ(τ) = 0.002, is vital for enabling a 5σ detection of the sum of the neutrino masses when combined with a CMB-S4 lensing measurement and with lower-redshift constraints on the growth of structure and the distance-redshift relation. Parameters characterizing the epoch of reionization will also be tightly constrained; PIXIE’s τ constraint converts into σ(zre) = 0.2 for the mean time of reionization, and a kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich measurement from S4 gives σ(Δzre) = 0.03 for the duration of reionization. Both PIXIE and S4 will put strong constraints on primordial tensor fluctuations, vital for testing early-Universe models, and will do so at distinct angular scales. We forecast σ(r) ≈ 5 × 10^−4 for a signal with a tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 10^−3, after accounting for diffuse foreground removal and delensing. The wide and dense frequency coverage of PIXIE results in an expected foreground-degradation factor on r of only ≈25%. By measuring large and small scales PIXIE and S4 will together better limit the energy injection at recombination from dark matter annihilation, with pann < 0.09 × 10^−6 m3/s/kg projected at 95% confidence. Cosmological parameters measured from the damping tail with S4 will be best constrained by polarization, which has the advantage of minimal contamination from extragalactic emission.