SPIDER: a balloon-borne CMB polarimeter for large angular scales
We describe SPIDER, a balloon-borne instrument to map the polarization of the millimeter-wave sky with degree angular resolution. Spider consists of six monochromatic refracting telescopes, each illuminating a focal plane of large-format antenna-coupled bolometer arrays. A total of 2,624 superconduc...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Text |
Language: | unknown |
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arXiv
2011
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Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1106.2158 https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.2158 |
Summary: | We describe SPIDER, a balloon-borne instrument to map the polarization of the millimeter-wave sky with degree angular resolution. Spider consists of six monochromatic refracting telescopes, each illuminating a focal plane of large-format antenna-coupled bolometer arrays. A total of 2,624 superconducting transition-edge sensors are distributed among three observing bands centered at 90, 150, and 280 GHz. A cold half-wave plate at the aperture of each telescope modulates the polarization of incoming light to control systematics. Spider's first flight will be a 20-30-day Antarctic balloon campaign in December 2011. This flight will map \sim8% of the sky to achieve unprecedented sensitivity to the polarization signature of the gravitational wave background predicted by inflationary cosmology. The Spider mission will also serve as a proving ground for these detector technologies in preparation for a future satellite mission. : 12 pages, 6 figures; as published in the conference proceedings for SPIE Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V (2010) |
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