CMB from the South Pole: Past, Present, and Future

TL;DR

The South Pole has been a pivotal site for CMB research over 20 years, enabling landmark discoveries in temperature anisotropy, polarization, and small-scale measurements, advancing our understanding of fundamental cosmological phenomena.

Contribution

This paper reviews the evolution and current state of CMB experiments at the South Pole, highlighting its unique advantages and recent scientific achievements.

Findings

First detection of CMB polarization.

Most precise measurements of temperature power spectrum at small scales.

Development of ultra-deep polarization and secondary anisotropy observations.

Abstract

South Pole Station offers a unique combination of high, dry, stable conditions and well-developed support facilities. Over the past 20 years, a sequence of increasingly sophisticated CMB experiments at Pole have built on the experience of early pioneering efforts, producing a number of landmark contributions to the field. Telescopes at the South Pole were among the first to make repeated detections of degree-scale CMB temperature anisotropy and to map out the harmonic structure of its acoustic peaks. More recent achievements include the first detection of polarization of the CMB and the most precise measurements of the temperature power spectrum at small angular scales. New CMB telescopes at the South Pole are now making ultra-deep observations of the large-scale polarization of the CMB and of its secondary temperature anisotropies on arcminute scales. These two observing goals represent the current frontiers of CMB research, focused on constraining Inflation and the nature of Dark Energy. The South Pole now hosts an array of CMB observing platforms covering a wide range of angular scales and supporting very long integration times on the cleanest sky available, and thus should play an increasing role in pushing these frontiers of CMB research.