Weak Lensing of the CMB: Cumulants of the Probability Distribution Function

We discuss the real-space moments of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) due to weak gravitational lensing by intervening large-scale structure. We show that if the probability distribution function of primordial temperature anisotropies is Gaussian, then it remains unchanged after gravitational lensing. With finite resolution, however, non-zero higher-order cumulants are generated both by lensing autocorrelations and by cross-correlations between the lensing potential and secondary anisotropies in the CMB such as the Sunayev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. Skewness is produced by these lensing-SZ correlations, while kurtosis receives contributions from both lensing alone and lensing-SZ correlations. We show that if the projected lensing potential is Gaussian, all cumulants of higher-order than the kurtosis vanish. While recent results raise the possibility of detection of the skewness in upcoming data, the kurtosis will likely remain undetected.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

A Lensing Reconstruction of Primordial Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization

We discuss a possibility to directly reconstruct the CMB polarization field at the last scattering surface by accounting for modifications imposed by the gravitational lensing effect. The suggested method requires a tracer field of the large scale structure lensing potentials that deflected propagating CMB photons from the last scattering surface. This required information can come from a variety of observations on the large scale structure matter distribution, including convergence reconstructed from lensing shear studies involving galaxy shapes. In the case of so-called curl, or B,-modes of CMB polarization, the reconstruction allows one to identify the distinct signature of inflationary gravitational waves.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; PRD submitte

Lensed CMB power spectra from all-sky correlation functions

Weak lensing of the CMB changes the unlensed temperature anisotropy and polarization power spectra. Accounting for the lensing effect will be crucial to obtain accurate parameter constraints from sensitive CMB observations. Methods for computing the lensed power spectra using a low-order perturbative expansion are not good enough for percent-level accuracy. Non-perturbative flat-sky methods are more accurate, but curvature effects change the spectra at the 0.3-1% level. We describe a new, accurate and fast, full-sky correlation-function method for computing the lensing effect on CMB power spectra to better than 0.1% at l<2500 (within the approximation that the lensing potential is linear and Gaussian). We also discuss the effect of non-linear evolution of the gravitational potential on the lensed power spectra. Our fast numerical code is publicly available.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Changes to match PRD version including new section on non-linear corrections. CAMB code available at http://camb.info

Impact of Teeth on Social Participation: Modified Treatment Policy Approach

Social participation prevents social isolation and loneliness among older adults while having numerous positive effects on their health and well-being in rapidly aging societies. We aimed to estimate the effect of retaining more natural teeth on social participation among older adults in Japan. The analysis used longitudinal data from 24,872 participants in the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (2010, 2013, and 2016). We employed a longitudinal modified treatment policy approach to determine the effect of several hypothetical scenarios (preventive scenarios and tooth loss scenarios) on frequent social participation (1 = at least once a week/0 = less than once a week) after a 6-y follow-up. The corresponding statistical parameters were estimated using targeted minimum loss-based estimation (TMLE) method. Number of teeth category (edentate/1–9/10–19/≥20) was treated as a time-varying exposure, and the outcome estimates were adjusted for time-varying (income, self-rated health, marital status, instrumental activities of daily living, vision loss, hearing loss, major comorbidities, and number of household members) and time-invariant covariates (age, sex, education, baseline social participation). Less frequent social participation was associated with older age, male sex, lower income, low educational attainment, and poor self-rated health at the baseline. Social participation improved when tooth loss prevention scenarios were emulated. The best preventive scenario (i.e., maintaining ≥20 teeth among each participant) improved social participation by 8% (risk ratio [RR] = 1.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.05–1.11). Emulated tooth loss scenarios gradually decreased social participation. A hypothetical scenario in which all the participants were edentate throughout the follow-up period resulted in a 11% (RR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.84–0.94) reduction in social participation. Subsequent tooth loss scenarios showed 8% (RR = 0.92; 95% CI, 0.88–0.95), 6% (RR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.91–0.97), and 4% (RR = 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93–0.98) reductions, respectively. Thus, among Japanese older adults, retaining a higher number of teeth positively affects their social participation, whereas being edentate or having a relatively lower number of teeth negatively affects their social participation

Large Scale Pressure Fluctuations and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect associated with pressure fluctuations of the large scale structure gas distribution will be probed with current and upcoming wide-field small angular scale cosmic microwave background experiments. We study the generation of pressure fluctuations by baryons which are present in virialized dark matter halos and by baryons present in small overdensities. For collapsed halos, assuming the gas distribution is in hydrostatic equilibrium with matter density distribution, we predict the pressure power spectrum and bispectrum associated with the large scale structure gas distribution by extending the dark matter halo approach which describes the density field in terms of correlations between and within halos. The projected pressure power spectrum allows a determination of the resulting SZ power spectrum due to virialized structures. The unshocked photoionized baryons present in smaller overdensities trace the Jeans-scale smoothed dark matter distribution. They provide a lower limit to the SZ effect due to large scale structure in the absence of massive collapsed halos. We extend our calculations to discuss higher order statistics, such as bispectrum and skewness in SZ data. The SZ-weak lensing cross-correlation is suggested as a probe of correlations between dark matter and baryon density fields, while the probability distribution functions of peak statistics of SZ halos in wide field CMB data can be used as a probe of cosmology and non-Gaussian evolution of large scale structure pressure fluctuations.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; Revised with expanded discussions. Phys. Rev. D. (in press

Large-Scale Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect: Measuring Statistical Properties with Multifrequency Maps

We study the prospects for extracting detailed statistical properties of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect associated with large scale structure using upcoming multifrequency CMB experiments. The greatest obstacle to detecting the large-angle signal is the confusion noise provided by the primary anisotropies themselves, and to a lesser degree galactic and extragalactic foregrounds. We employ multifrequency subtraction techniques and the latest foregrounds models to determine the detection threshold for the Boomerang, MAP (several microK) and Planck CMB (sub microK) experiments. Calibrating a simplified biased-tracer model of the gas pressure off recent hydrodynamic simulations, we estimate the SZ power spectrum, skewness and bispectrum through analytic scalings and N-body simulations of the dark matter. We show that the Planck satellite should be able to measure the SZ effect with sufficient precision to determine its power spectrum and higher order correlations, e.g. the skewness and bispectrum. Planck should also be able to detect the cross correlation between the SZ and gravitational lensing effect in the CMB. Detection of these effects will help determine the properties of the as yet undetected gas, including the manner in which the gas pressure traces the dark matter.Comment: 13 ApJ pages, 11 figures; typos and figure 5 revised; submitted to Ap

Gravitational lensing as a contaminant of the gravity wave signal in CMB

Gravity waves (GW) in the early universe generate B-type polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which can be used as a direct way to measure the energy scale of inflation. Gravitational lensing contaminates the GW signal by converting the dominant E polarization into B polarization. By reconstructing the lensing potential from CMB itself one can decontaminate the B mode induced by lensing. We present results of numerical simulations of B mode delensing using quadratic and iterative maximum-likelihood lensing reconstruction methods as a function of detector noise and beam. In our simulations we find the quadratic method can reduce the lensing B noise power by up to a factor of 7, close to the no noise limit. In contrast, the iterative method shows significant improvements even at the lowest noise levels we tested. We demonstrate explicitly that with this method at least a factor of 40 noise power reduction in lensing induced B power is possible, suggesting that T/S=10^-6 may be achievable in the absence of sky cuts, foregrounds, and instrumental systematics. While we do not find any fundamental lower limit due to lensing, we find that for high-sensitivity detectors residual lensing noise dominates over the detector noise.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR

The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER): Instrumentation and First Results

Ultraviolet emission from the first generation of stars in the Universe ionized the intergalactic medium in a process which was completed by z similar to 6; the wavelength of these photons has been redshifted by (1 + z) into the near infrared today and can be measured using instruments situated above the Earth's atmosphere. First flying in February 2009, the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER) comprises four instruments housed in a single reusable sounding rocket borne payload. CIBER will measure spatial anisotropies in the extragalactic IR background caused by cosmological structure from the epoch of reionization using two broadband imaging instruments, make a detailed characterization of the spectral shape of the IR background using a low resolution spectrometer, and measure the absolute brightness of the Zodiacal light foreground with a high resolution spectrometer in each of our six science fields. The scientific motivation for CIBER and details of its first and second flight instrumentation will be discussed. First flight results on the color of the zodiacal light around 1 mu m and plans for the future will also be presented

Observations of the Near-infrared Spectrum of the Zodiacal Light with CIBER

Interplanetary dust (IPD) scatters solar radiation which results in the zodiacal light that dominates the celestial diffuse brightness at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Both asteroid collisions and cometary ejections produce the IPD, but the relative contribution from these two sources is still unknown. The low resolution spectrometer (LRS) onboard the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER) observed the astrophysical sky spectrum between 0.75 and 2.1 μm over a wide range of ecliptic latitude. The resulting zodiacal light spectrum is redder than the solar spectrum, and shows a broad absorption feature, previously unreported, at approximately 0.9 μm, suggesting the existence of silicates in the IPD material. The spectral shape of the zodiacal light is isotropic at all ecliptic latitudes within the measurement error. The zodiacal light spectrum, including the extended wavelength range to 2.5 μm using Infrared Telescope in Space (IRTS) data, is qualitatively similar to the reflectance of S-type asteroids. This result can be explained by the proximity of S-type asteroidal dust to Earth's orbit, and the relatively high albedo of asteroidal dust compared with cometary dust