BICEP2 / Keck Array VIII: Measurement of gravitational lensing from large-scale B-mode polarization

Abstract

We present measurements of polarization lensing using the 150 GHz maps, which include all data taken by the BICEP2 and Keck Array Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiments up to and including the 2014 observing season (BK14). Despite their modest angular resolution (~0º.5), the excellent sensitivity (~3μK-arcmin) of these maps makes it possible to directly reconstruct the lensing potential using only information at larger angular scales (ℓ ⩾ 700). From the auto-spectrum of the reconstructed potential, we measure an amplitude of the spectrum to be A_L^(øø) = 1.15 ± 0.36 (Planck ΛCDM prediction corresponds to A_L^(øø) = 1) and reject the no-lensing hypothesis at 5.8σ, which is the highest significance achieved to date using an EB lensing estimator. Taking the cross-spectrum of the reconstructed potential with the Planck 2015 lensing map yields A_L^(øø) = 1.13 ± 0.20. These direct measurements of A_L^(øø) are consistent with the ΛCDM cosmology and with that derived from the previously reported BK14 B-mode auto-spectrum (A_L^(BB) = 1.20 ± 0.17). We perform a series of null tests and consistency checks to show that these results are robust against systematics and are insensitive to analysis choices. These results unambiguously demonstrate that the B modes previously reported by BICEP/Keck at intermediate angular scales (150 ≾ ℓ ≾ 350) are dominated by gravitational lensing. The good agreement between the lensing amplitudes obtained from the lensing reconstruction and B-mode spectrum starts to place constraints on any alternative cosmological sources of B modes at these angular scales.

Files

Additional details