SPIDER: a balloon-borne CMB polarimeter for large angular scales

• Main Authors: Filippini, J. P., Ade, P. A. R., Amiri, M., Benton, S. J., Bihary, R., Bock, J. J., Bond, J. R., Bonetti, J. A., Bryan, S. A., Burger, B., Chiang, H. C., Contaldi, C. R., Crill, B. P., Doré, O., Farhang, M., Fissel, L. M., Gandilo, N. N., Golwala, S. R., Gudmundsson, J. E., Halpern, M., Hasselfield, M., Hilton, G., Holmes, W., Hristov, V. V., Irwin, K. D., Jones, W. C., Kuo, C. L., MacTavish, C. J., Mason, P. V., Montroy, T. E., Morford, T. A., Netterfield, C. B., O'Dea, D. T., Rahlin, A. S., Reintsema, C. D., Ruhl, J. E., Runyan, M. C., Schenker, M. A., Shariff, J. A., Soler, J. D., Trangsrud, A., Tucker, C., Tucker, R. S., Turner, A. D.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2011
• Subjects: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics astro-ph.CO; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM; FOS Physical sciences; Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1106.2158; https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.2158

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)