A wavelet-Galerkin algorithm of the E/B decomposition of CMB
  polarization maps
  We develop an algorithm of separating the $E$ and $B$ modes of the CMB
polarization from the noisy and discretized maps of Stokes parameter $Q$ and
$U$ in a finite area. A key step of the algorithm is to take a wavelet-Galerkin
discretization of the differential relation between the $E$, $B$ and $Q$, $U$
fields. This discretization allows derivative operator to be represented by a
matrix, which is exactly diagonal in scale space, and narrowly banded in
spatial space. We show that the effect of boundary can be eliminated by
dropping a few DWT modes located on or nearby the boundary. This method reveals
that the derivative operators will cause large errors in the $E$ and $B$ power
spectra on small scales if the $Q$ and $U$ maps contain Gaussian noise. It also
reveals that if the $Q$ and $U$ maps are random, these fields lead to the
mixing of the $E$ and $B$ modes. Consequently, the $B$ mode will be
contaminated if the powers of $E$ modes are much larger than that of $B$ modes.
Nevertheless, numerical tests show that the power spectra of both $E$ and $B$
on scales larger than the finest scale by a factor of 4 and higher can
reasonably be recovered, even when the power ratio of $E$- to $B$-modes is as
large as about 10$^2$, and the signal-to-noise ratio is equal to 10 and higher.
This is because the Galerkin discretization is free of false correlations, and
keeps the contamination under control. As wavelet variables contain information
of both spatial and scale spaces, the developed method is also effective to
recover the spatial structures of the $E$ and $B$ mode fields.
