Systematic effects in polarizing Fourier transform spectrometers for
  cosmic microwave background observations
  The detection of the primordial B-mode polarization signal of the cosmic
microwave background (CMB) would provide evidence for inflation. Yet as has
become increasingly clear, the detection of a such a faint signal requires an
instrument with both wide frequency coverage to reject foregrounds and
excellent control over instrumental systematic effects. Using a polarizing
Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) for CMB observations meets both these
requirements. In this work, we present an analysis of instrumental systematic
effects in polarizing Fourier transform spectrometers, using the Primordial
Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) as a worked example. We analytically solve for the
most important systematic effects inherent to the FTS - emissive optical
components, misaligned optical components, sampling and phase errors, and spin
synchronous effects - and demonstrate that residual systematic error terms
after corrections will all be at the sub-nK level, well below the predicted 100
nK B-mode signal.
