BICEP is a ground-based millimeter-wave bolometric array designed to target the primordial gravity wave signature on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. Currently in its third year of operation at the South Pole, BICEP is measuring the CMB polarization with unprecedented sensitivity at 100 and 150 GHz in the cleanest available 2% of the sky, as well as deriving independent constraints on the diffuse polarized foregrounds with select observations on and off the Galactic plane. Instrument calibrations are discussed in the context of rigorous control of systematic errors, and the performance during the first two years of the experiment is reviewed.
@article{arxiv.0808.1763,
title = {CMB polarimetry with BICEP: instrument characterization, calibration, and performance},
author = {Yuki D. Takahashi and Denis Barkats and John O. Battle and Evan M. Bierman and James J. Bock and H. Cynthia Chiang and C. Darren Dowell and Eric F. Hivon and William L. Holzapfel and Viktor V. Hristov and William C. Jones and J. P. Kaufman and Brian G. Keating and John M. Kovac and Chao-Lin Kuo and Andrew E. Lange and Erik M. Leitch and Peter V. Mason and Tomotake Matsumura and Hien T. Nguyen and Nicolas Ponthieu and Graca M. Rocha and Ki Won Yoon and P. Ade and L. Duband},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.1763},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
12 pages, 15 figures, updated version of a paper accepted for Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV, Proceedings of SPIE, 7020, 2008