We characterize the problem of artificial polarization for the Submillimeter High Angular Resolution Polarimeter ( SHARP ) through the use of simulated data and observations made at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory ( CSO ) .
These erroneous , artificial polarization signals are introduced into the data through misalignments in the bolometer sub-arrays plus pointing drifts present during the data-taking procedure .
An algorithm is outlined here to address this problem and correct for it , provided that one can measure the degree of the sub-array misalignments and telescope pointing drifts .
Tests involving simulated sources of Gaussian intensity profile indicate that the level of introduced artificial polarization is highly dependent upon the angular size of the source .
Despite this , the correction algorithm is effective at removing up to 60 % of the artificial polarization during these tests .
The analysis of Jupiter data taken in January 2006 and February 2007 indicates a mean polarization of 1.44 \% \pm 0.04 \% and 0.95 \% \pm 0.09 \% , respectively .
The application of the correction algorithm yields mean reductions in the polarization of approximately 0.15 % and 0.03 % for the 2006 and 2007 data sets , respectively .