The balloon-borne large-aperture submillimeter telescope for polarimetry-BLASTPol: performance and results from the 2010 Antarctic flight

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) is a suborbital mapping experiment designed to study the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLASTPol uses a total power instrument and an achromatic half-wave plate to modulate the polariza...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pascale, Enzo, Moncelsi, Lorenzo, Mroczkowski, Tony K.
Other Authors: Stepp, Larry M., Gilmozzi, Roberto, Hall, Helen J.
Format: Book Part
Language:English
Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://authors.library.caltech.edu/71493/
https://authors.library.caltech.edu/71493/1/844415.pdf
https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20161026-080636128
Description
Summary:The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) is a suborbital mapping experiment designed to study the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLASTPol uses a total power instrument and an achromatic half-wave plate to modulate the polarization signal. During its first flight from Antarctica in December 2010, BLASTPol made degree scale maps of linearly polarized dust emission from molecular clouds in three wavebands centered at 250, 350, and 500 μm. This unprecedented dataset in terms of sky coverage, with sub-arcminute resolution, allows BLASTPol to trace magnetic fields in star-forming regions at scales ranging from cores to entire molecular cloud complexes. A second long-duration flight is scheduled for December 2012.