STOKES PARAMETERS IN COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND MEASUREMENTS

We compute numerically the scalar- and tenser-mode induced Stokes para meters of the cosmic microwave background, taking into account basis-r otation effects. It is found that the tensor contribution to the polar ization power spectrum becomes enhanced and dominates over the scalar contribution for low multipoles in a universe with or without recombin ation. Furthermore, we show that all full-sky-averaged two-point cross -correlation functions of the Stokes parameters vanish. We thus commen t on the crosscorrelation between the anisotropy and polarization of t he cosmic microwave background and calculate the expected signal-to-no ise ratio for the polarization experiment currently underway.