CMB Polarization Experiments

Abstract

We discuss the analysis of polarization experiments with particular emphasis on those that measure the Stokes parameters on a ring on the sky. We discuss the ability of these experiments to separate the $E$ and $B$ contributions to the polarization signal. The experiment being developed at Wisconsin university is studied in detail, it will be sensitive to both Stokes parameters and will concentrate on large scale polarization, scanning a $47^o$ degree ring. We will also consider another example, an experiment that measures one of the Stokes parameters in a $1^o$ ring. We find that the small ring experiment will be able to detect cosmological polarization for some models consistent with the current temperature anisotropy data, for reasonable integration times. In most cosmological models large scale polarization is too small to be detected by the Wisconsin experiment, but because both $Q$ and $U$ are measured, separate constraints can be set on $E$ and $B$ polarization.Comment: 27 pages with 12 included figure