Abstract
The Planck mission, designed for making measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation with unprecedented accuracy and angular resolution, is expected to release its entire data in the near future. In this paper, we provide model-independent forecasts for the TT, EE, and TE angular power spectra for the Planck mission using synthetic data based on the best-fit Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model. The nonparametric function estimation methodology we use here is based on the agnostic viewpoint of allowing the data to speak for themselves rather than letting the models decide what is inferred from the data. Our analysis indicates that the three Planck angular power spectra will be determined sufficiently well for 2≤l ≲lmax, where lmax=25001ex” (TT1ex” ), 1377(EE), and 1727(TE) respectively. A key signature of reionization, namely, a bump at low values of l, is evident in our forecasts for the EE and TE power spectra. Nonparametric confidence bands in the phase shift (ϕm) versus acoustic scale (lA) plane, corresponding to the first eight peaks in the TT power spectrum, show a confluence region for 300≲lA≲305 which is in good agreement with the estimate lA=300 based on the best-fit ΛCDM model. From our results, we expect that the final Planck data should lead to accurate model-independent estimates of CMB angular power spectra using our nonparametric regression formalism.
Author
Aghamousa, Amir; Arjunwadkar, Mihir; Souradeep, Tarun
Journal
Physical Review D
Paper Publication Date
2014
Paper Type
Astrostatistics