English

Polarization angle accuracy for future CMB experiments. The COSMOCal project and its prototype in the 1mm band

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2023-11-15 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation offers a unique window into the early Universe, facilitating precise examinations of fundamental cosmological theories. However, the quest for detecting B-modes in the CMB, predicted by theoretical models of inflation, faces substantial challenges in terms of calibration and foreground modeling. The COSMOCal (COsmic Survey of Millimeter wavelengths Objects for CMB experiments Calibration) project aims at enhancing the accuracy of the absolute calibration of the polarization angle ψ\psi of current and future CMB experiments. The concept includes the build of a very well known artificial source emitting in the frequency range [20-350] GHz that would act as an absolute calibrator for several polarization facilities on Earth. A feasibility study to place the artificial source in geostationary orbit, in the far field for all the telescopes on Earth, is ongoing. In the meanwhile ongoing hardware work is dedicated to build a prototype to test the technology, the precision and the stability of the polarization recovering in the 1 mm band (220-300 GHz). High-resolution experiments as the NIKA2 camera at the IRAM 30m telescope will be deployed for such use. Once carefully calibrated (Δψ\Delta\psi < 0.1 degrees) it will be used to observe astrophysical sources such as the Crab nebula, which is the best candidate in the sky for the absolute calibration of CMB experiments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.08307,
  title  = {Polarization angle accuracy for future CMB experiments. The COSMOCal project and its prototype in the 1mm band},
  author = {A. Ritacco and L. Bizzarri and F. Boulanger and M. Pérault and J. Aumont and F. Bouchet and M. Calvo and A. Catalano and D. Darson and F. X. Désert and J. Errard and A. Feret and J. F. Macías-Pérez and B. Maffei and A. Monfardini and L. Montier and M. Murgia and P. Morfin and F. Nati and G. Pisano and N. Ponthieu and J. L. Puget and S. Savorgnano and B. Segret and K. Schuster and J. Treuttel and M. Zannoni},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.08307},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

to appear in Proc. of the mm Universe 2023 conference, Grenoble (France), June 2023, published by F. Mayet et al. (Eds), EPJ Web of conferences, EDP Sciences