BLAST-TNG: a next generation balloon-borne large aperture submillimeter polarimeter

• Main Authors: Fissel, Laura M., Ade, Peter, Angile, Francesco E., Campbell Ashton, Peter, Austermann, Jason Edward, Billings, Tashalee, Che, George, Cho, Hsiao-Mei, Cunningham, Maria R., Davis, Kristina, Devlin, Mark J., Dicker, Simon, Dober, Bradley, Fukui, Yasuo, Galitzki, Nicholas, Gao, Jiansong, Gordon, Sam, Groppi, Christopher E., Hillbrand, Seth, Hilton, Gene, Hubmayr, Hannes, Irwin, Kent, Jones, Paul, Klein, Jeffrey, Li, Dale, Li, Zhi-Yun, Lourie, Nathan, Lowe, Ian, Mani, Hamdi, Martin, Peter G., Mauskopf, Philip, Mckenney, Christopher, Nati, Federico, Novak, Giles, Pascale, Enzo, Pisano, Giampaolo, Pereira Santos, Fabio, Scott, Douglas, Sinclair, Adrian, Diego Diego Soler, Juan, Tucker, Carole, Underhill, Matthew, Vissers, Michael, Williams, Paul
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/156813/; https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/2017AAS.22913306F

Measurements of polarized thermal dust emission can be used to map magnetic fields in the interstellar medium. Recently, BLASTPol, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry, has published the most detailed map ever made of a giant molecular cloud forming high-mass stars. I will present an overview of The Next Generation BLAST polarimeter (BLAST-TNG), the successor telescope to BLASTPol, which maps linearly polarized dust emission at 250, 350 and 500 μm. BLAST-TNG utilizes a 2.5-meter carbon-fiber primary mirror that illuminates focal plane arrays containing over 3,000 microwave kinetic inductance detectors. This new polarimeter has an order of magnitude increase in mapping speed and resolution compared to BLASTPol and we expect to make over 500,000 measurements of magnetic field orientation per flight. BLAST-TNG will have the sensitivity to map entire molecular cloud complexes as well as regions of diffuse high Galactic latitude dust. It also has the resolution (FWHM = 25’’ at 250 μm) necessary to trace magnetic fields in prestellar cores and dense filaments. BLAST-TNG will thus provide a crucial link between the low resolution Planck all-sky maps and the detailed but narrow field of view polarimetry capabilities of ALMA. For our first Antarctic flight in December 2017 we are putting out a call for shared-risk proposals to fill 25% of the available science time. In addition, BLAST-TNG data will be publicly released within a year of the publication of our first look papers, leaving a large legacy data set for the study of the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process and the properties of interstellar dust.