SPIDER: A Balloon-borne Large-scale CMB Polarimeter

TL;DR

Spider is a balloon-borne CMB polarization experiment using large detector arrays and multiple frequency bands to map the sky and improve understanding of reionization, with a focus on systematics control.

Contribution

It introduces a large-scale, multi-frequency balloon experiment with advanced polarization modulation and foreground removal capabilities.

Findings

Designed to map 50% of the sky in a 2-6 day flight

Achieves sensitivities of 4.2 and 3.1 micro K_cmb rt s at 100 and 150 GHz

Aims to significantly improve reionization optical depth measurements

Abstract

Spider is a balloon-borne experiment that will measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background over a large fraction of a sky at 1 degree resolution. Six monochromatic refracting millimeter-wave telescopes with large arrays of antenna-coupled transition-edge superconducting bolometers will provide system sensitivities of 4.2 and 3.1 micro K_cmb rt s at 100 and 150 GHz, respectively. A rotating half-wave plate will modulate the polarization sensitivity of each telescope, controlling systematics. Bolometer arrays operating at 225 GHz and 275 GHz will allow removal of polarized galactic foregrounds. In a 2-6 day first flight from Alice Springs, Australia in 2010, Spider will map 50% of the sky to a depth necessary to improve our knowledge of the reionization optical depth by a large factor.