Dust polarization modelling at large scale over the northern Galactic cap using EBHIS and Planck data

¹ Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411007, India
e-mail: debabrata@iucaa.in
² School of Physical Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, Jatni 752050, Odisha, India
e-mail: tghosh@niser.ac.in
³ Laboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, 75005 Paris, France
⁴ Tartu Observatory, 61602 Tõravere, Tartumaa, Estonia
⁵ Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁶ CITA, University of Toronto, 60 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H8, Canada
⁷ Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Ward No. 8, NCL Colony, Pashan, Pune 411008, Maharashtra, India

Received: 18 June 2019
Accepted: 31 May 2020

Abstract

The primary source of systematic uncertainty in the quest for the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) introduced by primordial gravitational waves is polarized thermal emission from Galactic dust. Therefore, accurate characterization and separation of the polarized thermal dust emission is an essential step in distinguishing such a faint CMB B-mode signal. We provide a modelling framework to simulate polarized thermal dust emission based on the model described in Ghosh et al. (2017, A&A, 601, A71), making use of both the Planck dust and Effelsberg-Bonn HI surveys over the northern Galactic cap. Our seven-parameter dust model, incorporating both HI gas in three different column density templates as a proxy for spatially variable dust intensity and a phenomenological model of Galactic magnetic field, is able to reproduce both one- and two-point statistics of the observed dust polarization maps seen by Planck at 353 GHz over a selected low-column density region in the northern Galactic cap. This work has important applications in assessing the accuracy of component separation methods and in quantifying the confidence level of separating polarized Galactic emission and the CMB B-mode signal, as is needed for ongoing and future CMB missions.