Measuring the polarization of the cosmic microwave background with the Keck Array and Bicep2
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Inflation, the theory that the early universe underwent a brief period of exponential expansion, extends the standard model of cosmology to resolve the isotropy, flatness, entropy, and monopole problems. Quantum fluctuations in the inflationary field set the initial seeds of matter which became the temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and later formed the large scale structures of the universe. Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field during inflation are predicted to produce a stochastic background of gravitational waves which would leave an imprint in the B-mode (curl) component of the polarization of the CMB, with an amplitude dependent on the energy scale of inflation. Bicep2 and the Keck Array are telescopes designed specifically to measure the B-mode polarization at degree-angular scales. They are a set of cryogenically cooled telescopes with refracting, on-axis optics with an aperture of 26.4 cm. The Keck Array has a combined imaging array of 2500 antenna-coupled TES bolometers read with a SQUID-based time-domain multiplexing system. All five of the Keck Array telescopes observed a 400 square degree patch from the South Pole at 150 GHz in 2012-2013, with an achieved sensitivity of 9 micro-K/rt(s) for the 2013 season. This thesis will focus on the optimization and characterization of the Keck Array, as well as the combined cosmology results from the Keck Array with Bicep2. The Keck Array data are consistent with the Bicep2 detection of B-mode polarization at degree-angular scales and increases the sensitivity of the measurement by a factor of 2.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Kernasovskiy, Sarah |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics. |
| Primary advisor | Kuo, Chao-Lin |
| Thesis advisor | Kuo, Chao-Lin |
| Thesis advisor | Cabrera, Blas |
| Thesis advisor | Church, Sarah Elizabeth |
| Advisor | Cabrera, Blas |
| Advisor | Church, Sarah Elizabeth |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Sarah Kernasovskiy. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Sarah Ann Stokes Kernasovskiy
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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