Published June 15, 2025 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Measurements of the temperature and E-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background from the full 500-square-degree SPTpol dataset

  • 1. ROR icon University of Chicago
  • 2. ROR icon Cardiff University
  • 3. ROR icon Fermilab
  • 4. ROR icon National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • 5. ROR icon University of Colorado Boulder
  • 6. ROR icon Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
  • 7. ROR icon Sorbonne University
  • 8. ROR icon SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
  • 9. ROR icon University of Melbourne
  • 10. ROR icon McGill University
  • 11. ROR icon University of KwaZulu-Natal
  • 12. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab
  • 13. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 14. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 15. ROR icon High Energy Accelerator Research Organization
  • 16. ROR icon Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
  • 17. ROR icon Princeton University
  • 18. ROR icon European Southern Observatory
  • 19. CSIRO Space & Astronomy, P.O. Box 1130, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia
  • 20. ROR icon University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • 21. ROR icon Stanford University
  • 22. ROR icon University of California, Davis
  • 23. ROR icon University of Toronto
  • 24. ROR icon Argonne National Laboratory
  • 25. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 26. ROR icon University of Minnesota
  • 27. ROR icon Case Western Reserve University
  • 28. ROR icon Yale University
  • 29. ROR icon Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  • 30. ROR icon Southwest Research Institute
  • 31. ROR icon Michigan State University

Abstract

Using the full four-year SPTpol 500  deg2 dataset in both the 95 and 150 GHz frequency bands, we present measurements of the temperature and 𝐸-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as the 𝐸-mode polarization autopower spectrum (𝐸⁢𝐸) and temperature-𝐸-mode cross-power spectrum (𝑇⁢𝐸) in the angular multipole range 50 <ℓ <8000. We find the SPTpol dataset to be self-consistent, passing several internal consistency tests based on maps, frequency bands, bandpowers, and cosmological parameters. The full SPTpol dataset is well-fit by the Λ⁢CDM model, for which we find 𝐻0=70.48±2.16  km s−1 Mpc−1 and Ω𝑚 =0.271 ±0.026, when using only the SPTpol data and a Planck-based prior on the optical depth to reionization. The Λ⁢CDM parameter constraints are consistent across the 95 GHz-only, 150 GHz-only, 𝑇⁢𝐸-only, and 𝐸⁢𝐸-only data splits. Between the ℓ <1000 and ℓ >1000 data splits, the Λ⁢CDM parameter constraints are borderline consistent at the  ∼2⁢𝜎 level. This consistency improves when including a parameter 𝐴𝐿, the degree of lensing of the CMB inferred from the smearing of acoustic peaks. When marginalized over 𝐴𝐿, the Λ⁢CDM parameter constraints from SPTpol are consistent with those from Planck. The power spectra presented here are the most sensitive measurements of the lensed CMB damping tail to date for roughly ℓ >1700 in 𝑇⁢𝐸 and ℓ >2000 in 𝐸⁢𝐸.

Copyright and License

© 2025 American Physical Society.

Acknowledgement

The South Pole Telescope program is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Awards No. OPP-1852617 and No. OPP-2332483. Partial support is also provided by the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. Argonne National Laboratory’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of High Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. We gratefully acknowledge the computing resources provided on Crossover, a high-performance computing cluster operated by the Laboratory Computing Resource Center at Argonne National Laboratory. Work at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a DOE-OS, HEP User Facility managed by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, was supported under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. Melbourne authors acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects scheme (DP210102386).

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this article are openly available, embargo periods may apply: https://pole.uchicago.edu/public/data/chou25/.

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PhysRevD.111.123513.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

National Science Foundation
OPP-1852617
National Science Foundation
OPP-2332483
University of Chicago
United States Department of Energy
DE-AC02-07CH11359
Office of High Energy Physics
DE-AC02-06CH11357
Australian Research Council
DP210102386
Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics

Dates

Available
2025-06-10
Published online

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