Cosmic 21-cm Delensing of Microwave Background Polarization and the Minimum Detectable Energy Scale of Inflation

Abstract

The curl (B) modes of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization anisotropies are a unique probe of the primordial background of inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs). Unfortunately, the B-mode polarization anisotropies generated by gravitational waves at recombination are confused with those generated by the mixing of gradient-mode (E-mode) and B-mode polarization anisotropies as CMB photons propagate through the Universe and are gravitationally lensed. We describe here a method for delensing CMB polarization anisotropies using observations of anisotropies in the cosmic 21-cm radiation emitted or absorbed by neutral hydrogen atoms at redshifts 10 to 200. While the detection of cosmic 21-cm anisotropies at high resolution is challenging, a combined study with a relatively low-resolution (but high-sensitivity) CMB polarization experiment could probe inflationary energy scales well below the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) scale of 10^{16} GeV -- constraining models with energy scales below 10^{15} GeV (the detectable limit derived from CMB observations alone). The ultimate theoretical limit to the detectable inflationary energy scale via this method may be as low as 3 \times 10^{14} GeV.