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The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER)The Primordial Inflation Polarization ExploreR (Piper) is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter designed to search for evidence of inflation by measuring the large-angular scale CMB polarization signal. Bicep2 recently reported a detection of B-mode power corresponding to the tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.2 on approximately 2 degree scales. If the Bicep2 signal is caused by inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs), then there should be a corresponding increase in B-mode power on angular scales larger than 18 degrees. Piper is currently the only suborbital instrument capable of fully testing and extending the Bicep2 results by measuring the B-mode power spectrum on angular scales theta θ = approximately 0.6 deg to 90 deg, covering both the reionization bump and recombination peak, with sensitivity to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio down to r = 0.007, and four frequency bands to distinguish foregrounds. Piper will accomplish this by mapping 85% of the sky in four frequency bands (200, 270, 350, 600 GHz) over a series of 8 conventional balloon flights from the northern and southern hemispheres. The instrument has background-limited sensitivity provided by fully cryogenic (1.5 K) optics focusing the sky signal onto four 32×40-pixel arrays of time-domain multiplexed Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers held at 140 milli-Kelvin. Polarization sensitivity and systematic control are provided by front-end Variabledelay Polarization Modulators (VPMs), which rapidly modulate only the polarized sky signal at 3 Hz and allow Piper to instantaneously measure the full Stokes vector (I,Q,U,0V) for each pointing. We describe the Piper instrument and progress towards its first flight.
Document ID
20140017473
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
External Source(s)
doi:10.1117/12.2056806
Authors
Lazear, Justin Scott (Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Ade, Peter A. (Cardiff Univ. United Kingdom)
Benford, Dominic J. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Bennett, Charles L. (Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Chuss, David T. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Dotson, Jessie L. (NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Eimer, Joseph R. (Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Fixsen, Dale J. (Maryland Univ. College Park, MD, United States)
Halpern, Mark (British Columbia Univ. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
Hinderks, James (Adnet Systems, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Hinshaw, Gary F. (British Columbia Univ. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
Irwin, Kent (Stanford Univ. Stanford, CA, United States)
Jhabvala, Christine (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Johnson, Bradley (Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Kogut, Alan (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Lowe, Luke (Wyle Science, Technology and Engineering Group Houston, TX, United States)
McMahon, Jeff J. (Michigan Univ. Ann Arbor, MI, United States)
Miller, Timothy M. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Mirel, Paul (Wyle Science, Technology and Engineering Group Houston, TX, United States)
Moseley, S. Harvey (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Rodriguez, Samelys (Adnet Systems, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Staguhn, Johannes G. (Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Switzer, Eric R. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Tucker, Carole E. (Cardiff Univ. United Kingdom)
Weston, Amy (Adnet Systems, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Wollack, Edward (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Date Acquired
December 17, 2014
Publication Date
September 1, 2014
Publication Information
Publication: Proc. SPIE 9153, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VII, 91531L
Publisher: SPIE
Volume: 9153
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN16539
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG06EO90A
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG12PL17C
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX09AC98A
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX14AB76A
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
Keywords
polarimeter
bolometer
cosmic microwave background

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