A new polarization amplitude bias reduction method

Abstract

Polarization amplitude estimation is affected by a positive noise bias, particularly important in regions with low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We present a new approach to correct for this bias in the case there is additional information about the polarization angle. We develop the 'known-angle estimator' that works in the special case when there is an independent and high SNR (greater than or similar to 2 sigma) measurement of the polarization angle. It is derived for the general case where the uncertainties in the Q, U Stokes parameters are not symmetric. This estimator completely corrects for the polarization bias if the polarization angle is perfectly known. In the realistic case, where the angle template has uncertainties, a small residual bias remains, but that is shown to be much smaller that the one left by other classical estimators. We also test our method with more realistic data, using the noise properties of the three lower frequency maps of Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. In this case, the known-angle estimator also produces better results than methods that do not include the angle information. This estimator is therefore useful in the case where the polarization angle is expected to be constant over different data sets with different SNR.