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Published September 1, 2014 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

BICEP2. II. Experiment and three-year Data Set

Abstract

We report on the design and performance of the BICEP2 instrument and on its three-year data set. BICEP2 was designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on angular scales of 1°-5°(ℓ = 40-200), near the expected peak of the B-mode polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic inflation. Measuring B-modes requires dramatic improvements in sensitivity combined with exquisite control of systematics. The BICEP2 telescope observed from the South Pole with a 26 cm aperture and cold, on-axis, refractive optics. BICEP2 also adopted a new detector design in which beam-defining slot antenna arrays couple to transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers, all fabricated on a common substrate. The antenna-coupled TES detectors supported scalable fabrication and multiplexed readout that allowed BICEP2 to achieve a high detector count of 500 bolometers at 150 GHz, giving unprecedented sensitivity to B-modes at degree angular scales. After optimization of detector and readout parameters, BICEP2 achieved an instrument noise-equivalent temperature of 15.8 µK√s. The full data set reached Stokes Q and U map depths of 87.2 nK in square-degree pixels (5.'2 μK) over an effective area of 384 deg^2 within a 1000 deg^2 field. These are the deepest CMB polarization maps at degree angular scales to date. The power spectrum analysis presented in a companion paper has resulted in a significant detection of B-mode polarization at degree scales.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2014 April 15; accepted 2014 July 15; published 2014 August 14. Bicep2 was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants ANT-0742818 and ANT-1044978 (Caltech/Harvard) and ANT-0742592 and ANT-1110087 (Chicago/Minnesota). The development of antenna-coupled detector technology was supported by the JPL Research and Technology Development Fund and grants 06-ARPA206-0040 and 10-SAT10-0017 from the NASA APRA and SAT programs. The development and testing of focal planes were supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation at Caltech. Readout electronics were supported by a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant to UBC. The receiver development was supported in part by a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation. The computations in this paper were run on the Odyssey cluster supported by the FAS Science Division Research Computing Group at Harvard University. Tireless administrative support was provided by Irene Coyle and Kathy Deniston. We thank the staff of the U.S. Antarctic Program and in particular the South Pole Station without whose help this research would not have been possible. We thank all those who have contributed past efforts to the Bicep/Keck Array series of experiments, including the Bicep1 and Keck Array teams, as well as our colleagues on the Spider team with whom we coordinated receiver and detector development efforts at Caltech. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Andrew Lange, whom we sorely miss.

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Published - 0004-637X_792_1_62.pdf

Submitted - 1403.4302v3.pdf

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August 22, 2023
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