SPIDER: Probing the Early Universe with a Suborbital Polarimeter

Details SPIDER: Probing the Early Universe with a Suborbital Polarimeter SPIDER: Probing the Early Universe with a Suborbital Polarimeter

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21914316f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #143.16

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SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect a divergence-free polarization pattern ("B-modes") in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). In the inflationary scenario, the spectrum of the tensor perturbations that generate this signal is proportional to that of the primordial scalar perturbations through the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. The expected level of systematic error in the SPIDER instrument is significantly below the amplitude of an interesting cosmological B-mode signal with r=0.03. An optimized scanning strategy enables us to minimize uncertainty in the reconstruction of the Stokes parameters used to characterize the CMB, while providing access to a relatively wide range of angular scales. In the SPIDER field, the polarized emission from interstellar dust is as bright or brighter than the cosmological r=0.03 B-mode signal at all SPIDER frequencies (90, 150, and 280 GHz), a situation similar to that found in the "Southern Hole." Despite this foreground contamination, two 20-day flights of the SPIDER instrument will constrain the amplitude of the B-mode signal to r<0.03 (99% CL). In the absence of foregrounds, the same limit can be reached after one 20-day flight.
The Spider collaboration gratefully acknowledges the support of NASA (APRA-NNX07AL64G), the National Science Foundation (ANT-1043515), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Support in Canada is provided by NSERC, the Canadian Space Agency, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and CIFAR.

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