The POLARBEAR Experiment
Abstract
We present the design and characterization of the POLARBEAR experiment. POLARBEAR will measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on angular scales ranging from the experiment's 3.5 arcminute beam size to several degrees. The experiment utilizes a unique focal plane of 1,274 antenna-coupled, polarization sensitive TES bolometers cooled to 250 milliKelvin. Employing this focal plane along with stringent control over systematic errors, POLARBEAR has the sensitivity to detect the expected small scale B-mode signal due to gravitational lensing and search for the large scale B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves. POLARBEAR was assembled for an engineering run in the Inyo Mountains of California in 2010 and was deployed in late 2011 to the Atacama Desert in Chile. An overview of the instrument is presented along with characterization results from observations in Chile.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1210.7768,
title = {The POLARBEAR Experiment},
author = {Z. Kermish and P. Ade and A. Anthony and K. Arnold and K. Arnold and D. Barron and D. Boettger and J. Borrill and S. Chapman and Y. Chinone and M. A. Dobbs and J. Errard and G. Fabbian and D. Flanigan and G. Fuller and A. Ghribi and W. Grainger and N. Halverson and M. Hasegawa and K. Hattori and M. Hazumi and W. L. Holzapfel and J. Howard and P. Hyland and A. Jaffe and B. Keating and T. Kisner and A. T. Lee and M. Le Jeune and E. Linder and M. Lungu and F. Matsuda and T. Matsumura and X. Meng and N. J. Miller and H. Morii and S. Moyerman and M. J. Myers and H. Nishino and H. Paar and E. Quealy and C. L. Reichardt and P. L. Richards and C. Ross and A. Shimizu and M. Shimon and C. Shimmin and M. Sholl and P. Siritanasak and H. Spieler and N. Stebor and B. Steinbach and R. Stompor and A. Suzuki and T. Tomaru and C. Tucker and O. Zahn},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.7768},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Presented at SPIE Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, July 6, 2012. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 8452