15–19 Jun 2026
Dipartimento di Fisica G. Occhialini, Università Degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Europe/Zurich timezone

Polarization Angle Calibration of CMB Telescopes: Strategies and Implications for Cosmological Probes of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

16 Jun 2026, 11:50
20m
U3-01

U3-01

Oral contribution Topical Session 1 - Astro

Speaker

Noemi Mezzanzanica

Description

Accurate polarization angle calibration of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) telescopes constitutes a critical challenge in modern observational cosmology. A miscalibration of the polarization angle induces spurious leakage from E-modes into B-modes, which contaminates the primordial gravitational wave signal, biases the reconstruction of the CMB lensing potential, and introduces systematic uncertainties in the measurement of cosmic birefringence.

In this contribution, we present an overview of the current strategies employed to calibrate the polarization angle, including observations of known celestial polarized sources, data analysis techniques exploiting the predicted nulling of the EB cross-correlation in the standard cosmological model, and the deployment of dedicated hardware solutions, including sparse wire grids and artificial calibration sources. We discuss the limitations and complementarity of each approach in the context of the quest to constrain the nature of dark matter and dark energy through high-accuracy CMB polarization measurements.

Parallel session Astrophysical Probes of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

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