Spider Optimization II: Optical, Magnetic and Foreground Effects
Abstract
Spider is a balloon-borne instrument designed to map the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with degree-scale resolution over a large fraction of the sky. Spider's main goal is to measure the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves through their imprint on the polarization of the CMB if the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, is greater than 0.03. To achieve this goal, instrumental systematic errors must be controlled with unprecedented accuracy. Here, we build on previous work to use simulations of Spider observations to examine the impact of several systematic effects that have been characterized through testing and modeling of various instrument components. In particular, we investigate the impact of the non-ideal spectral response of the half-wave plates, coupling between focal plane components and the Earth's magnetic field, and beam mismatches and asymmetries. We also present a model of diffuse polarized foreground emission based on a three-dimensional model of the Galactic magnetic field and dust, and study the interaction of this foreground emission with our observation strategy and instrumental effects. We find that the expected level of foreground and systematic contamination is sufficiently low for Spider to achieve its science goals.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1102.0559,
title = {Spider Optimization II: Optical, Magnetic and Foreground Effects},
author = {D. T. O'Dea and P. A. R. Ade and M. Amiri and S. J. Benton and J. J. Bock and J. R. Bond and J. A. Bonetti and S. Bryan and B. Burger and H. C. Chiang and C. N. Clark and C. R. Contaldi and B. P. Crill and G. Davis and O. Dore and M. Farhang and J. P. Filippini and L. M. Fissel and A. A. Fraisse and N. N. Gandilo and S. Golwala and J. E. Gudmundsson and M. Hasselfield and G. Hilton and W. Holmes and V. V. Hristov and K. Irwin and W. C. Jones and C. L. Kuo and C. J. MacTavish and P. V. Mason and T. E. Montroy and T. A. Morford and C. B. Netterfield and A. S. Rahlin and C. Reintsema and J. E. Ruhl and M. C. Runyan and M. A. Schenker and J. A. Shariff and J. D. Soler and A. Trangsrud and C. Tucker and R. S. Tucker and A. D. Turner and D. Wiebe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1102.0559},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
submitted to APJ, 15 pages, 12 figures