Measuring Polarization with DASI

• Published in: Nature
• Main Authors: Leitch, E M, Kovács, J M, Pryke, C L, Reddall, B, Sandberg, E S, Dragovan, M, Carlstrom, J E, Halverson, N W, Holzapfel, W L
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy; Amundsen-Scott; Austral; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01271; http://cds.cern.ch/record/582471

We describe an experiment to measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), a compact microwave interferometer optimized to detect CMB anisotropy at multipoles 140 to 900. The telescope has operated at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station since 2000 January. The telescope was retrofit as a polarimeter during the 2000--2001 austral summer, and throughout the 2001 and 2002 austral winters has made observations of the CMB with sensitivity to all four Stokes parameters. The telescope performance has been extensively characterized through observations of artificial sources, the Moon, and polarized and unpolarized Galactic sources. In 271 days of observation, DASI has differenced the CMB fluctuations in two fields to an rms noise level of 2.8 uK.