Efficient decomposition of cosmic microwave background polarization maps into pure E, pure B, and ambiguous components

Abstract

Separation of the B component of a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization map from the much larger E component is an essential step in CMB polarimetry. For a map with incomplete sky coverage, this separation is necessarily hampered by the presence of "ambiguous" modes which could be either E or B modes. I present an efficient pixel-space algorithm for removing the ambiguous modes and separating the map into "pure" E and B components. The method, which works for arbitrary geometries, does not involve generating a complete basis of such modes and scales the cube of the number of pixels on the boundary of the map.