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arXiv · 1810.04572

Eigen-reconstruction of Perturbations to the Primordial Tensor Power Spectrum

M. Farhang·A. Vafaei Sadr
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Abstract

We explore the potential of the B-mode anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) to constrain the shape of the primordial tensor power spectrum in a model-independent way. We expand possible perturbations to the power-law primordial tensor spectrum (predicted by the simplest single-field slow-roll inflationary models) using various sets of localized and nonlocalized basis functions and construct the Fisher matrix for their amplitudes. The eigen-analysis of the Fisher matrix would then yield a hierarchy of uncorrelated perturbation patterns (called tensor eigenmodes or TeMs) which are rank-ordered according to their measurability by data. We find that the first three TeMs are expected to be constrainable within a few percent by the next generation of B-mode experiments. We discuss how the method can be iteratively used to reconstruct the observable part of any general deviation from the fiducial power spectrum.

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M. Farhang, A. Vafaei Sadr. 2018-10-10. Eigen-reconstruction of Perturbations to the Primordial Tensor Power Spectrum. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaf7a1

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