Scientists funded by this program develop advanced millimeter-wave instruments to conduct observations from the U.S. South Pole Station to study properties of the early Universe. The main goal of the project is to test the inflationary theory, a remarkable idea that the entire observable Universe began in a violently accelerated expansion of a microscopic volume. Along the way, superconducting detector technology and our knowledge on astronomical emission will be significantly advanced. The specific feature being pursued is a tiny swirly polarization pattern in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the 2.7-Kelvin afterglow of the Big Bang. Scientists involved in this program will design and build a telescope populated with more than 20 thousand state-of-the-art superconducting sensors, and field it to the South Pole station -- the driest place on Earth. The research activities will provide excellent opportunities for training of graduate students and postdocs. In addition, there is a set of outreach goals aiming at the public audience: (1) Providing middle and high school teachers with the training and tools they need to inspire students to pursue STEM via the Research Experiences for Teachers program at Stanford; (2) Inspiring the faculty, postdocs, and graduate students engaged in the proposed work to be effective science communicators with well-organized workshops, and (3) Enabling broad access to some of the most fascinating, but difficult, concepts that underlie modern cosmology by creating a set of animations.
The team will use the BICEP Array and SPT-3G data to produce cutting-edge measurements of CMB polarization. Data from this new system will be used to discriminate the dust emission from our own Galaxy and the primordial CMB signal. The program consists of three parts: (1) Development of a 22,000-detector 220/270GHz receiver to complete the BICEP Array. The required high detector count is enabled by a new technology?microwave SQUID multiplexers; (2) Implementation of delensing analysis in conjunction with SPT-3G; (3) Improvements to the control of instrumental systematics. In addition to the main science goal of constraining inflation, the high-frequency receiver will dramatically improve understanding of polarized Galactic dust emission. Also, BICEP Array combined with SPT-3G is a pathfinder towards the CMB-S4 initiative to build an "ultimate" Stage 4 CMB polarization experiment.
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.
