Optical characterization of the BICEP3 CMB polarimeter at the South Pole

Karkare, K. S., Ade, P. A. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5127-0401, Ahmed, Z., Alexander, K. D., Amiri, M., Barkats, D., Benton, S. J., Bischoff, C. A., Bock, J. J., Boenish, H., Bowens-Rubin, R., Buder, I., Bullock, E., Buza, V., Connors, J., Filippini, J. P., Fliescher, S. T., Grayson, J. A., Halpern, M., Harrison, S. A., Hilton, G. C., Hristov, V. V., Hui, H., Irwin, K. D., Kang, J. H., Karpel, E., Kefeli, S., Kernasovskiy, S. A., Kovac, J. M., Kuo, C. L., Leitch, E. M., Lueker, M., Megerian, K. G., Monticue, V., Namikawa, T., Netterfield, C. B., Nguyen, H. T., O'Brient, R., Ogburn, R. W., Pryke, C. L., Reintsema, C. D., Richter, S., St. Germaine, M. T., Schwarz, R., Sheehy, C. D., Staniszewski, Z. K., Steinbach, B., Teply, G. P., Thompson, K. L., Tolan, J. E., Tucker, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1851-3918, Turner, A. D., Vieregg, A. G., Wandui, A., Weber, A., Willmert, J., Wong, C. L., Wu, W. L. K. and Yoon, K. W. 2016. Optical characterization of the BICEP3 CMB polarimeter at the South Pole. Presented at: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation,, Edinburgh, UK, 26 June - 1 July 2016. Published in: Holland, Wayne S. and Zmuidzinas, Jonas eds. Proceedings Volume 9914, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII;. Proceedings of SPIE. , vol.9914 Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, 10.1117/12.2231747

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Abstract

BICEP3 is a small-aperture refracting cosmic microwave background (CMB) telescope designed to make sensitive polarization maps in pursuit of a potential B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves. It is the latest in the Bicep/Keck Array series of CMB experiments located at the South Pole, which has provided the most stringent constraints on inflation to date. For the 2016 observing season, BICEP3 was outfitted with a full suite of 2400 optically coupled detectors operating at 95 GHz. In these proceedings we report on the far field beam performance using calibration data taken during the 2015-2016 summer deployment season in situ with a thermal chopped source. We generate high-fidelity per-detector beam maps, show the array-averaged beam profile, and characterize the differential beam response between co-located, orthogonally polarized detectors which contributes to the leading instrumental systematic in pair differencing experiments. We find that the levels of differential pointing, beamwidth, and ellipticity are similar to or lower than those measured for Bicep2 and Keck Array. The magnitude and distribution of Bicep3’s differential beam mismatch – and the level to which temperature-to-polarization leakage may be marginalized over or subtracted in analysis - will inform the design of next-generation CMB experiments with many thousands of detectors.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers
ISSN:	0277-786X
Last Modified:	28 Feb 2023 16:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157055

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