ABS: an Analytical method of Blind Separation of CMB from foregrounds

Abstract

Extracting CMB B-mode polarization from complicated foregrounds is a challenging task in searching for inflationary gravitational waves. We propose the ABS method as a blind and analytical solution to this problem. It applies to the measured cross bandpower between different frequency bands and obtains the CMB B-mode bandpower analytically. It does not rely on assumptions of foregrounds and does not require multiple parameter fitting. Testing against a variety of foregrounds, survey frequency configurations and instrument noise, we verify its applicability and numerical stability. The ABS method also applies to CMB temperature, E-mode polarization, the thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect, spectral distortion, and even significantly different problems such as cosmic magnification.