EBEX: a balloon-borne CMB polarization experiment

• Published in: SPIE Proceedings, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V
• Main Authors: Reichborn-Kjennerud, B., Aboobaker, Asad, M., Ade, P., Aubin, F., Baccigalupi, C., Bao, C., Borrill, J., Cantalupo, C., Chapman, D., Didier, J., Dobbs, M., Grain, J., Grainger, W., Hanany, S., Hillbrand, S., Hubmayr, J., Jaffe, A., Johnson, B., Jones, T., Kisner, T., Klein, J., Korotkov, A., Leach, S., Lee, A., Levinson, L., Limon, M., Macdermid, K., Matsumura, T., Meng, X., Miller, A., J., Milligan, M., Pascale, E., Polsgrove, D., Ponthieu, N., Raach, K., Sagiv, I., Smecher, G., Stivoli, F., Stompor, Radek, Tran, H., Tristram, M., Tucker, G. S., Vinokurov, Y., Yadav, A., Zaldarriaga, M., Zilic, K.
• Other Authors: Columbia University New York, University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMN), University of Minnesota System (UMN), Cardiff University, McGill University = Université McGill Montréal, Canada, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati / International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA / ISAS), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley (LBNL), Institut d'astrophysique spatiale (IAS), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National d’Études Spatiales Paris (CNES), National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg (NIST), Imperial College London, Brown University, Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, Israël, California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), Global parallel and distributed computing (GRAND-LARGE), Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique (LRI), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-CentraleSupélec-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-CentraleSupélec-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille (LIFL), Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Inria Saclay - Ile de France, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria), APC - Gravitation (APC-Gravitation), AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik ( Albert-Einstein-Institut ) (AEI), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft-Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institute for Advanced Study Princeton (IAS)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2010
• Subjects: [PHYS.ASTR.CO]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics [astro-ph.CO]; [SDU.ASTR.CO]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics [astro-ph.CO]; Sumner; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.in2p3.fr/in2p3-00517912; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857138

International audience EBEX is a NASA-funded balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations will be made using 1432 transition edge sensor (TES) bolometric detectors read out with frequency multiplexed SQuIDs. EBEX will observe in three frequency bands centered at 150, 250, and 410 GHz, with 768, 384, and 280 detectors in each band, respectively. This broad frequency coverage is designed to provide valuable information about polarized foreground signals from dust. The polarized sky signals will be modulated with an achromatic half wave plate (AHWP) rotating on a superconducting magnetic bearing (SMB) and analyzed with a fixed wire grid polarizer. EBEX will observe a patch covering ~1% of the sky with 8' resolution, allowing for observation of the angular power spectrum from l = 20 to 1000. This will allow EBEX to search for both the primordial B-mode signal predicted by inflation and the anticipated lensing B-mode signal. Calculations to predict EBEX constraints on r using expected noise levels show that, for a likelihood centered around zero and with negligible foregrounds, 99% of the area falls below r = 0.035. This value increases by a factor of 1.6 after a process of foreground subtraction. This estimate does not include systematic uncertainties. An engineering flight was launched in June, 2009, from Ft. Sumner, NM, and the long duration science flight in Antarctica is planned for 2011. These proceedings describe the EBEX instrument and the North American engineering flight.