PICO - the probe of inflation and cosmic origins

TL;DR

PICO is a proposed NASA mission to map the cosmic microwave background and other astrophysical phenomena across the entire sky, aiming to understand the early universe, fundamental physics, and cosmic evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive mission concept with multiple frequency bands and advanced instrumentation to address key questions in cosmology and astrophysics.

Findings

Design of a multi-frequency sky survey mission

Potential to measure inflationary energy scale and neutrino masses

Mapping of cosmic and galactic polarization signals

Abstract

The Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (PICO) is a NASA-funded study of a Probe-class mission concept. The top-level science objectives are to probe the physics of the Big Bang by measuring or constraining the energy scale of inflation, probe fundamental physics by measuring the number of light particles in the Universe and the sum of neutrino masses, to measure the reionization history of the Universe, and to understand the mechanisms driving the cosmic star formation history, and the physics of the galactic magnetic field. PICO would have multiple frequency bands between 21 and 799 GHz, and would survey the entire sky, producing maps of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation, of galactic dust, of synchrotron radiation, and of various populations of point sources. Several instrument configurations, optical systems, cooling architectures, and detector and readout technologies have been and continue to be considered in the development of the mission concept. We will present a snapshot of the baseline mission concept currently under development.