QUaD: A High-Resolution Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimeter

Creators: Hinderks, J. R.; Ade, P.; Bock, J.; Bowden, M.; Brown, M. L.; Cahill, G.; Carlstrom, J. E.; Castro, P. G.; Church, S.; Culverhouse, T.; Friedman, R.; Ganga, K.; Gear, W. K.; Gupta, S.; Harris, J.; Haynes, V.; Keating, B. G.; Kovac, J.; Kirby, E.; Lange, A. E.; Leitch, E.; Mallie, O. E.; Melhuish, S.; Memari, Y.; Murphy, A.; Orlando, A.; Schwarz, R.; O'Sullivan, C.; Piccirillo, L.; Pryke, C.; Rajguru, N.; Rusholme, B.; Taylor, A. N.; Thompson, K. L.; Tucker, C.; Turner, A. H.; Wu, E. Y. S.; Zemcov, M.

Abstract

We describe the QUaD experiment, a millimeter-wavelength polarimeter designed to observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from a site at the South Pole. The experiment comprises a 2.64 m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a cryogenically cooled receiver containing an array of 62 polarization-sensitive bolometers. The focal plane contains pixels at two different frequency bands, 100 GHz and 150 GHz, with angular resolutions of 5' and 35, respectively. The high angular resolution allows observation of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies over a wide range of scales. The instrument commenced operation in early 2005 and collected science data during three successive Austral winter seasons of observation.

Additional Information

© 2009 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 May 14; accepted 2008 October 2; published 2009 February 24. We acknowledge the staff of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and all involved in the United States Antarctic Program for their superb support during the construction and operation of this experiment. Special thanks go to our brave winter-over scientist Robert Schwarzwho has spent three consecutivewinter seasons with the QUaD. We also acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the Stanford University Physics Department machine shop in the construction of the focal plane assembly. J.R.H. thanks David Chuss for useful comments on this draft and Simon Radford for providing the 350 μm tipper data. QUaD is funded by the National Science Foundation in the USA, through grants AST-0096778,ANT-0338138,ANT-0338335, and ANT- 0338238, by the UK Science and technology Facilities Council (STFC) and its predecessor the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), and by the Science Foundation Ireland. J.R.H. acknowledges the support of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a Stanford Graduate Fellowship, and a NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.L.B. and A.O. acknowledge the award of PPARC fellowships. P.G.C. is funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. S.E.C. acknowledges support from a Stanford Terman Fellowship. J.M.K. acknowledges support from a John B. and Nelly L. Kilroy Foundation Fellowship. C.P. and J.E.C. acknowledge partial support from the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics through the grant NSF PHY-0114422. E.Y.W. acknowledges receipt of an NDSEG fellowship. M.Z. acknowledges the support of a NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship. This research was supported in part by appointments to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center (J.R.H.) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (M.Z.), administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through a contract with NASA.

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