2022 Upgrade and Improved Low Frequency Camera Sensitivity for CMB Observation at the South Pole
Abstract
Constraining the Galactic foregrounds with multi-frequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations is an essential step towards ultimately reaching the sensitivity to measure primordial gravitational waves (PGWs), the sign of inflation after the Big-Bang that would be imprinted on the CMB. The BICEP Array telescope is a set of multi-frequency cameras designed to constrain the energy scale of inflation through CMB B-mode searches while also controlling the polarized galactic foregrounds. The lowest frequency BICEP Array receiver (BA1) has been observing from the South Pole since 2020 and provides 30 GHz and 40 GHz data to characterize the Galactic synchrotron in our CMB maps. In this paper, we present the design of the BA1 detectors and the full optical characterization of the camera including the on-sky performance at the South Pole. The paper also introduces the design challenges during the first observing season including the effect of out-of-band photons on detectors performance. It also describes the tests done to diagnose that effect and the new upgrade to minimize these photons, as well as installing more dichroic detectors during the 2022 deployment season to improve the BA1 sensitivity. We finally report background noise measurements of the detectors with the goal of having photon noise dominated detectors in both optical channels. BA1 achieves an improvement in mapping speed compared to the previous deployment season.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.2208.01080,
title = {2022 Upgrade and Improved Low Frequency Camera Sensitivity for CMB Observation at the South Pole},
author = {A. Soliman and P. A. R. Ade and Z. Ahmed and M. Amiri and D. Barkats and R. Basu Thakur and C. A. Bischoff and D. Beck and J. J. Bock and V. Buza and J. Cheshire and J. Connors and J. Cornelison and M. Crumrine and A. J. Cukierman and E. V. Denison and M. I. Dierickx and L. Duband and M. Eiben and S. Fatigoni and J. P. Filippini and C. Giannakopoulos and N. Goeckner-Wald and D. C. Goldfinger and J. Grayson and P. K. Grimes and G. Hall and G. Halal and M. Halpern and E. Hand and S. A. Harrison and S. Henderson and S. R. Hildebrandt and G. C. Hilton and J. Hubmayr and H. Hui and K. D. Irwin and J. Kangh and K. S. Karkare and S. Kefeli and J. M. Kovac and C. L. Kuo and K. Lau and E. M. Leitch and A. Lennox and T. Liu and K. G. Megerian and L. Minutolo and L. Moncelsi and Y. Nakato and T. Namikawa and H. T. Nguyen and R. O'Brient and S. Palladino and M. A. Petroff and N. Precup and T. Prouve and C. Pryke and B. Racine and C. D. Reintsema and M. Salatino and A. Schillaci and B. L. Schmitt and B. Singari and T. St. Germaine and B. Steinbach and R. V. Sudiwala and K. L. Thompson and C. Tsai and C. Tucker and A. D. Turner and C. Umiltà and C. Vergès and A. G. Vieregg and A. Wandui and A. C. Weber and D. V. Wiebe and J. Willmert and W. L. K. Wu and H. Yang and K. W. Yoon and E. Young and C. Yu and L. Zeng and C. Zhang and S. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.01080},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 (AS22)