Polarized Synchrotron Foreground Assessment for CMB Experiments

Polarized Galactic synchrotron emission is an undesirable foreground for cosmic microwave background experiments observing at frequencies 45°). Generally −3.2 < β pol ≲ −3 in the inner Galactic plane and spurs, but the Fan Region in the outer galaxy has a flatter index. We find a clear spectral index steepening with increasing latitude south of the Galactic plane with Δ β pol = 0.4, and a smaller steepening of 0.25 in the north. Near the south Galactic pole the polarized synchrotron spectral index is β pol ≈ −3.4. Longitudinal spectral index variations of Δ β pol ∼ 0.1 about the latitudinal mean are also detected. Within the BICEP2/Keck survey footprint, we find consistency with a constant value, β pol = −3.25 ± 0.04 (statistical) ±0.02 (systematic). We compute a map of the frequency at which synchrotron and thermal dust emission contribute equally to the total polarized foreground. The limitations and inconsistencies among data sets encountered in this work make clear the value of additional independent surveys at multiple frequencies, especially between 10 and 20 GHz, provided these surveys have sufficient sensitivity and control of instrumental systematic errors.