Collaborative Research: Next Generation CMB Polarization Measurements with the QUaD Experiment

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed work is to operate a cosmological experiment for a third and final year at South Pole Station. The experiment (QuaD = QUEST at DASI = Q and U Extra-Galactic Sub-mm Telescope at Degree Angular Scale Interferometer) consists of a 2.6-m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a next-generation polarization-sensitive bolometer array, which will be aimed at obtaining maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization with unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution. The polarization of the CMB results from bulk motions of material at the time of the plasma-neutral transition, and the polarization measurements are the next frontier of CMB research, offering both the opportunity to make crucial tests of the standard cosmological model, and fresh insights which will lead beyond it. The instrument will make polarization measurements that are complementary to another existing experiment (BICEP = Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization), and will potentially allow the defining of inflationary gravity waves, an important signature of fundamental physics and of the early evolving universe.