Advancing Technologies for Measuring the Largest Angular Scale CMB

Cosmology is the big-picture study of the universe. One of the most important means for research in this field is to make careful measurements of the very faint radiation known as the “cosmic microwave background.” This radiation is very faint. Also, there are other radiation signals from non-cosmological sources that must be distinguished.

The technology and instrumentation to allow such experiments to make the needed measurements is a major challenge. Over the years progress has been made studying ever fainter aspects of this background radiation that are then used to test competing theoretical models. To enable such scientific progress, the underlying technologies must be improved further as will be undertaken in this project.

The team will provide instrumentation training for the next generation of scientists and will leverage this project to enhance their public education efforts.

This project seeks to develop technology for an enhanced polarimeter to study reionization and inflation cosmology on the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS). CLASS is built to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization on angular scales greater than 10 degrees (corresponding to spherical harmonic multipole moments near 20).

The survey looks to produce a high fidelity polarization map over 70% of the sky at frequencies near the Galactic foreground minimum. This project will develop enhanced larger format detector arrays and silicon optics that will improve CLASS sensitivity to ultimately allow better understanding of the early universe and fundamental physics.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.