The Parkes Galactic Meridian Survey (PGMS): observations and CMB polarization foreground analysis

We present observations and CMB foreground analysis of the Parkes Galactic Meridian Survey (PGMS), an investigation of the Galactic latitude behaviour of the polarized synchrotron emission at 2.3 GHz with the Parkes Radio Telescope. The survey consists of a 5-deg wide strip along the Galactic meridian l=254-deg extending from Galactic plane to South Galactic pole. We identify three zones distinguished by polarized emission properties: the disc, the halo, and a transition region connecting them. The halo section lies at latitudes |b| > 40-deg and has weak and smooth polarized emission mostly at large scale with steep angular power spectra of median slope $\beta_{\rm med} \sim -2.6$. The disc region covers the latitudes |b|<20-deg and has a brighter, more complex emission dominated by the small scales with flatter spectra of median slope $\beta_{\rm med} = -1.8$. The transition region has steep spectra as in the halo, but the emission increases toward the Galactic plane from halo to disc levels. The change of slope and emission structure at $b \sim -20\degr$ is sudden, indicating a sharp disc-halo transition. The whole halo section is just one environment extended over 50-deg with very low emission which, once scaled to 70GHz, is equivalent to the CMB B-Mode emission for a tensor-to-scalar perturbation power ratio r_halo = 3.3 +/- 0.4 x 10^{-3}. Applying a conservative cleaning procedure, we estimate an r detection limit of $\delta r \sim 2\times 10^{-3}$ at 70~GHz (3-sigma C.L.) and, assuming a dust polariztion fraction <12%, $\delta r \sim 1\times 10^{-2}$ at 150~GHz. The 150-GHz limit matches the goals of planned sub-orbital experiments, which can therefore be conducted at this high frequency. The 70-GHz limit is close to the goal of proposed next generation space missions, which thus might not strictly require space-based platforms.
Comment: 23 pages, 22 Figures. Accepted for publication on MNRAS. Some figures have been reduced in resolution. Replaced with the accepted version, 3 figures, more details on instrument performances, and map of polarization spectral index added