posted on 2023-06-07, 23:01authored byPia Mukherjee, Jon Urrestilla, Martin Kunz, Andrew R Liddle, Neil Bevis, Mark HindmarshMark Hindmarsh
The proposed CMBPol mission will be able to detect the imprint of topological defects on the CMB provided the contribution is sufficiently strong. We quantify the detection threshold for cosmic strings and for textures, and analyze the satellite's ability to distinguish between these different types of defects. We also assess the level of danger of misidentification of a defect signature as from the wrong defect type or as an effect of primordial gravitational waves. A 0.002 fractional contribution of cosmic strings to the CMB temperature spectrum at multipole ten, and similarly a 0.001 fractional contribution of textures, can be detected and correctly identified at the 3 level. We also confirm that a tensor contribution of r=0.0018 can be detected at over 3, in agreement with the CMBPol mission concept study. These results are supported by a model selection analysis.