Getting around cosmic variance

Abstract

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies probe the primordial density field at the edge of the observable Universe. There is a limiting precision (“cosmic variance”) with which anisotropies can determine the amplitude of primordial mass fluctuations. This arises because the surface of last scatter (SLS) probes only a finite two-dimensional slice of the Universe. Probing other SLS's observed from different locations in the Universe would reduce the cosmic variance. In particular, the polarization of CMB photons scattered by the electron gas in a cluster of galaxies provides a measurement of the CMB quadrupole moment seen by the cluster. Therefore, CMB polarization measurements toward many clusters would probe the anisotropy on a variety of SLS's within the observable Universe, and hence reduce the cosmic-variance uncertainty.