Stokes Parameters in Cosmic Microwave Background Measurements

Abstract

We compute numerically the scalar- and tensor-mode induced Stokes parameters of the cosmic microwave background, by taking into account the basis rotation effects. It is found that the tensor contribution to the polarization power spectrum get enhanced and dominates over the scalar contribution for low multipoles in a universe with or without recombination. Furthermore, we show that all full-sky averaged two-point cross-correlation functions of the Stokes parameters vanish. We thus comment on the cross-correlation between the anisotropy and polarization of the CMB, and calculate the expected signal to noise ratio for the polarization experiment underway.