Lensing reconstruction from PLANCK sky maps: inhomogeneous noise

Abstract

We discuss the effects of inhomogeneous sky-coverage on CMB lens reconstruction, focusing on application to the recently launched Planck satellite. We discuss the mean-field which is induced by noise inhomogeneities, as well as three approaches to lens reconstruction in this context: an optimal maximum-likelihood approach which is computationally expensive to evaluate, and two suboptimal approaches which are less intensive. The first of these is only sub-optimal at the five per-cent level for Planck, and the second prevents biasing due to uncertainties in the noise model.