This CAREER award will enable Dr. Kuo and his team to develop technology that will assist in the design of the POLAR array. The POLAR array will be a ground-based array that will detect and characterize the polarization signal in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), one of the most reliable and powerful probes in cosmology. Many cosmological parameters have been determined through the study of this remnant of the Big Bang. The technology development components of the proposal include the design of the focal plane, the detector/feed antenna architecture, readout electronics, techniques to implement large cold optics, and large aperture infrared filtering. All of these have the goal of maximizing the scientific output of the POLAR array.
The broader impacts of the award include the training of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. Data obtained by the array will serve as a legacy data set on the high-redshift mass distribution which will benefit the entire astronomical community. Dr. Kuo and his team will also work with teachers that take part in a RET program at Stanford.
