Cosmology from cross correlation of CMB lensing and galaxy surveys

Ruth Pearson, Oliver Zahn

Published 2013-11-04Version 1

In recent years cross correlation of lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with other large scale structure (LSS) tracers has been used as a method to detect CMB lensing. Current experiments are also becoming sensitive enough to measure CMB lensing without the help of auxiliary tracers. As data quality improves rapidly, it has been suggested that the CMB lensing-LSS cross correlation may provide new insights into parameters describing cosmological structure growth. In this work we perform forecasts that combine the lensing potential auto power spectrum from various future CMB experiments, the galaxy power spectrum from galaxy surveys, as well as the cross power spectrum between the two, marginalizing over a number galactic and non-galactic cosmological parameters. We find that the CMB lensing-LSS cross correlation contains significant information on parameters such as the redshift distribution and bias of LSS tracers. We also find that the cross correlation information will lead to independent probes of cosmological parameters such as neutrino mass and the reionization optical depth.