Observing low elevation sky and the CMB Cold Spot with BICEP3 at the South Pole

• Published in: Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy X
• Main Authors: Kang, Jae Hwan, Ade, P. A. R., Ahmed, Zeeshan, Amiri, Mandana, Barkats, Denis, Basu Thakur, R., Bischoff, Colin A., Bock, J. J., Boenish, Hans, Bullock, Eric, Buza, Victor, Cheshire, James R., Connors, Jake, Cornelison, James, Crumrine, Michael, Cukierman, Ari Jozef, Denison, Edward, Dierickx, Marion, Duband, Lionel, Eiben, Miranda, Fatigoni, Sofia, Filippini, Jeff P., Fliescher, Stefan, Goeckner-Wald, Neil, Goldfinger, David, Grayson, James A., Grimes, Paul, Hall, Grantland, Halpern, Mark, Harrison, Sam A., Henderson, Shawn, Hildebrandt, S. R., Hilton, Gene C., Hubmayr, Johannes, Hui, H., Irwin, Kent D., Karkare, Kirit S., Karpel, Ethan, Kefeli, S., Kernasovskiy, Sarah A., Kovac, John M., Kuo, Chao-Lin, Lau, King, Leitch, Erik M., Megerian, K. G., Minutolo, L., Moncelsi, L., Nakato, Yuka, Namikawa, Toshiya, Nguyen, H. T., O'Brient, R., Ogburn, IV, R. Walt, Palladino, Steven, Precup, Nathan, Prouve, Thomas, Pryke, Clement, Racine, Benjamin, Reintsema, Carl D., Richter, Steffen, Schillaci, A., Schmitt, Benjamin, Schwarz, Robert, Sheehy, Chris D., Soliman, A., St Germaine, Tyler, Steinbach, B., Sudiwala, Rashmi, Teply, Grant, Thompson, Keith L., Tolan, James E., Tucker, Carole, Turner, A. D., Umiltà , Caterina, Vieregg, Abigail G., Wandui, A., Weber, A. C., Wiebe, Don, Willmert, Justin, Wong, Chin Lin, Wu, Wai Ling K., Yang, Hung-I, Yoon, Ki Won, Young, Edward, Yu, Cyndia, Zeng, Lingzhen, Zhang, C., Zhang, S.
• Other Authors: Zmuidzinas, Jonas, Gao, Jian-Rong
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2020
• Subjects: Cosmic Microwave Background; Inflation; Gravitational Waves; Polarization; BICEP3; Cold Spot; Antarctic; Austral; Canada; South Pole; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2562066

BICEP3 is a 520 mm aperture on-axis refracting telescope at the South Pole, which observes the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at 95 GHz to search for the B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves. In addition to this main target, we have developed a low-elevation observation strategy to extend coverage of the Southern sky at the South Pole, where BICEP3 can quickly achieve degree-scale E-mode measurements over a large area. An interesting E-mode measurement is probing a potential polarization anomaly around the CMB Cold Spot. During the austral summer seasons of 2018-19 and 2019-20, BICEP3 observed the sky with a flat mirror to redirect the beams to various low elevation ranges. The preliminary data analysis shows degree-scale E-modes measured with high signal-to-noise ratio. © 2020 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). The BICEP/Keck project (including BICEP2, BICEP3 and BICEP Array) have been made possible through a series of grants from the National Science Foundation including 0742818, 0742592, 1044978, 1110087, 1145172, 1145143, 1145248, 1639040, 1638957, 1638978, 1638970, 1726917, 1313010, 1313062, 1313158, 1313287, 0960243, 1836010, 1056465, & 1255358 and by the Keck Foundation. The development of antenna-coupled detector technology was supported by the JPL Research and Technology Development Fund and NASA Grants 06-ARPA206-0040, 10-SAT10-0017, 12-SAT12-0031, 14-SAT14-0009, 16-SAT16-0002, & 18-SAT18-0017. The development and testing of focal planes were supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation at Caltech. Readout electronics were supported by a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant to UBC. The computations in this paper were run on the Odyssey cluster supported by the FAS Science Division Research Computing Group at Harvard University. The analysis effort at Stanford and SLAC was partially supported by the Department of Energy, Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. We thank the staff of the U.S. Antarctic Program and in particular the South ...