A Bolometric Receiver for Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements with the APEX Telescope

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

AST-0138348 Lee, Adrian A millimeter wave bolometric receiver will be built for the 12-meter diameter Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in transition with Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany. This receiver is a 300-element bolometric receiver for observations at 150 and 217 GHz. The bolometers will be horn-coupled, spider-web devices with superconducting transistor-edge sensors (TES) each using SQUID ammeter readout configured for 1024 elements. This receiver will be used to discover and study galaxy clusters via the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect at millimeter wavelengths. Data recorded with optical and x-ray measurements, when correlated with data recorded by this receiver promise to 1. reveal the formation history of galaxies, 2. Probe the nature of dark energy by measuring its equation of state, and 3. measure cosmological parameters including the mass energy density and the Hubble constant. ***