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Paper: Generalized Spherical Harmonics for All-Sky Polarization Studies
Volume: 125, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VI
Page: 198
Authors: Keegstra, P. B.; Smoot, G. F.; Gorski, K. M.; Hinshaw, G.; Tenorio, L.
Abstract: When whole-sky linear polarization is expressed in terms of Stokes parameters T_Q and T_U, as in analyzing polarization results from the Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR) on NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), coordinate transformations produce a mixing of T_Q and T_U. Consequently, it is inappropriate to expand T_Q and T_U in ordinary spherical harmonics. The proper expansion expresses both T_Q and T_U simultaneously in terms of a particular order of generalized spherical harmonics. The approach described here has been implemented, and is being used to analyze the polarization signals from the DMR data.
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