Measuring Rayleigh Scattering of the Cosmic Microwave Background with CCAT-prime

Choi, Steve K, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

Steve Choi is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct a program of research and education at Cornell University. He will play a lead role in developing and deploying an instrument to measure the scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons by hydrogen atoms in space. The measurements will advance our understanding of the physics of the early universe. Along with this research, he will conduct physics enrichment activities for underserved elementary school kids. This project will test and integrate arrays of kinetic inductance detectors on the CCAT-prime telescope under construction in the Atacama Desert. The arrays will allow measurements of Rayleigh scattering of CMB photons, which depends on the frequency of the photons, and is thus a potentially more sensitive probe of CMB anisotropies than Thomson scattering. The measurements could significantly improve constraints on cosmological observables including the number of relativistic species, the current expansion rate of the universe, and the mass sum of neutrinos. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.