Design and pre-flight performance of SPIDER 280 GHz receivers

• Published in: Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy X
• Main Authors: Shaw, E.C., Ade, P.A.R., Akers, S., Amiri, M., Austermann, J.E., Beall, J.A., Becker, D.T., Benton, S.J., Bergman, A.S., Bock, J.J., Bond, J.R., Bryan, S.A., Chiang, H.C., Contaldi, C.R., Domagalski, R.S., Doré, O., Duff, S.M., Duivenvoorden, A.J., Eriksen, H.K., Farhang, M., Filippini, J.P., Fissel, L.M., Fraisse, A.A., Freese, K., Galloway, M., Gambrel, A.E., Gandilo, N.N., Ganga, K., Grigorian, A., Gualtieri, R., Gudmundsson, J.E., Halpern, M., Hartley, J., Hasselfield, M., Hilton, G., Holmes, W., Hristov, V.V., Huang, Z., Hubmayr, J., Irwin, K.D., Jones, W.C., Kahn, A., Kuo, C.L., Kermish, Z.D., Lennox, A., Leung, J.S.-Y., Li, S., Mason, P.V., Megerian, K., Mocanu, L.M., Moncelsi, L., Morford, T.A., Nagy, J.M., Nie, R., Netterfield, C.B., Nolta, M., Osherson, B., Padilla, I.L., Rahlin, A.S., Redmond, S., Reintsema, C., Romualdez, L.J., Ruhl, J.E., Runyan, M.C., Shariff, J.A., Shiu, C., Soler, J.D., Song, X., Thommesen, H., Trangsrud, A., Tucker, C., Tucker, R.S., Turner, A.D., Ullom, J., van Der List, J.F., van Lanen, J., Vissers, M.R., Weber, A.C., Wen, S., Wehus, I.K., Wiebe, D.V., Young, E.Y.
• Other Authors: 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)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: SPIDER; cosmic microwave background; polarization; transition-edge sensor; scientific instrumentation; millimeter wave instrumentation; cosmology; scientific ballooning; cosmic background radiation: polarization; B-mode; B-mode: primordial; cosmological model; experimental results; optical; performance; galaxy; experimental equipment; [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-INS-DET]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; Antarc*; Antarctic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03122322; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2562941

International audience In this work we describe upgrades to the Spider balloon-borne telescope in preparation for its second flight, currently planned for December 2021. The Spider instrument is optimized to search for a primordial B-mode polarization signature in the cosmic microwave background at degree angular scales. During its first flight in 2015, Spider mapped ~10% of the sky at 95 and 150 GHz. The payload for the second Antarctic flight will incorporate three new 280 GHz receivers alongside three refurbished 95- and 150 GHz receivers from Spider's first flight. In this work we discuss the design and characterization of these new receivers, which employ over 1500 feedhorn-coupled transition-edge sensors. We describe pre-flight laboratory measurements of detector properties, and the optical performance of completed receivers. These receivers will map a wide area of the sky at 280 GHz, providing new information on polarized Galactic dust emission that will help to separate it from the cosmological signal.