Daniel BaumannCooray, AsanthaAsanthaCoorayKamionkowski, MarcMarcKamionkowski2024-03-122024-03-122003-08-0113841076https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/640790We discuss fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization due to scattering from reionized gas at low redshifts. Polarization is produced by re-scattering of the primordial temperature anisotropy quadrupole and of the kinematic quadrupole that arises from gas motion transverse to the line of sight. We show that both effects produce equal E- and B-parity polarization, and are, in general, several orders of magnitude below the dominant polarization contributions at the last scattering surface to E-modes or the gravitational-lensing contribution to B-modes at intermediate redshifts. These effects are also several orders of magnitude below the B polarization due to lensing even after subtraction with higher-order correlations, and are thus too small to constitute a background for searches for the polarization signature of inflationary gravitational waves. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Cosmic microwave background | Large scale structure of universejournal article10.1016/S1384-1076(03)00050-22-s2.0-0042697048https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0042697048