Temperature-Polarization Correlations from Tensor Fluctuations

Abstract

We study the polarization-temperature correlations on the cosmic microwave sky resulting from an initial scale invariant spectrum of tensor (gravity wave) fluctuations, such as those which might arise during inflation. The correlation function has the opposite sign to that for scalar fluctuations on large scales, raising the possibility of a direct determination of whether the microwave anisotropies have a significant tensor component. We briefly discuss the important problem of estimating the expected foreground contamination.