The BICEP2 CMB polarization experiment
The Bicep2 telescope is designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background on angular scales near 2-4 degrees, near the expected peak of the B-mode polarization signal induced by primordial gravitational waves from inflation. Bicep2 follows the success of Bicep, which has set th...
Published in: | SPIE Proceedings, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , |
Format: | Conference Object |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
2010
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/34335/ https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857864 |
Summary: | The Bicep2 telescope is designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background on angular scales near 2-4 degrees, near the expected peak of the B-mode polarization signal induced by primordial gravitational waves from inflation. Bicep2 follows the success of Bicep, which has set the most sensitive current limits on B-modes on 2-4 degree scales. The experiment adopts a new detector design in which beam-defining slot antennas are coupled to TES detectors photolithographically patterned in the same silicon wafer, with multiplexing SQUID readout. Bicep2 takes advantage of this design's higher focal-plane packing density, ease of fabrication, and multiplexing readout to field more detectors than Bicep1, improving mapping speed by nearly a factor of 10. Bicep2 was deployed to the South Pole in November 2009 with 500 polarization-sensitive detectors at 150 GHz, and is funded for two seasons of observation. The first months' data demonstrate the performance of the Caltech/JPL antenna-coupled TES arrays, and two years of observation with Bicep2 will achieve unprecedented sensitivity to B-modes on degree angular scales. |
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