53 Search Results

The Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP)/Keck (BK) collaboration is currently leading the quest for the highest-sensitivity measurements of the polarized cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies on a degree scale with a series of cryogenic telescopes, of which BICEP Array (BA) is the latest Stage-3 upgrade with a total of ~ 32,000 detectors. The instrument comprises 4 receivers spanning 30–270 GHz, with the low-frequency 30/40 GHz deployed to the South Pole Station in late 2019. The full complement of receivers is forecast to set the most stringent constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. Building on these advances, the overarchingmore » small-aperture telescope concept is already being used as the reference for further Stage-4 experiment design. This paper describes the development of the BICEP Array 150 GHz detector module and its fabrication requirements, with highlights on the high-density time division multiplexing (TDM) design of the cryogenic circuit boards. The low-impedance wiring required between the detectors and the frst stage of superconducting quantum interference device amplifers is crucial to maintaining a stable bias current on the detectors. Here, a novel multilayer FR4 Printed Circuit Board with superconducting traces, capable of reading out up to 648 detectors, is detailed along with its validation tests. An ultra-high-density TDM detector module concept we developed for a CMB-S4-like experiment that allows up to 1920 detectors to be read out is also presented. TDM has been chosen as the detector readout technology for the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage-4 (CMB-S4) experiment based on its proven low-noise performance, predictable costs, and overall maturity of the architecture. The heritage for TDM is rooted in mm- and sub-mm-wave experiments dating back 20 years and has since evolved to support a multiplexing factor of 64x in Stage-3 experiments.« less

We present a measurement of gravitational lensing over $1500{\mathrm{deg}}^2$ of the Southern sky using SPT-3G temperature data at 95 GHz and 150 GHz taken in 2018. The lensing amplitude relative to a fiducial Planck 2018 Lambda cold dark matter ( $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ ) cosmology is found to be $1.020\pm 0.060$ , excluding instrumental and astrophysical systematic uncertainties. We conduct extensive systematic and null tests to check the robustness of the lensing measurements, and report a minimum-variance combined lensing power spectrum over angular multipoles of $50<L<2000$ , which we usemore » to constrain cosmological models. When analyzed alone and jointly with primary cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectra within the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model, our lensing amplitude measurements are consistent with measurements from SPT-SZ, SPTpol, ACT, and Planck. Incorporating loose priors on the baryon density and other parameters including uncertainties on a foreground bias template, we obtain a $1\sigma$ constraint on ${\sigma }_8{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}^{0.25}=0.595\pm 0.026$ using the SPT-3G 2018 lensing data alone, where ${\sigma }_8$ is a common measure of the amplitude of structure today and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}$ is the matter density parameter. Combining SPT-3G 2018 lensing measurements with baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data, we derive parameter constraints of ${\sigma }_8=0.810\pm 0.033$ , $S_8\equiv {\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3{)}^{0.5}=0.836\pm 0.039$ , and Hubble constant $H_0={68.8}_{-1.6}^{+1.3}\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ . Our preferred $S_8$ value is higher by 1.6 to $1.8\sigma$ compared to cosmic shear measurements from DES-Y3, HSC-Y3, and KiDS-1000 at lower redshift and smaller scales. We combine our lensing data with CMB anisotropy measurements from both SPT-3G and Planck to constrain extensions of $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ . Using CMB anisotropy and lensing measurements from SPT-3G only, we provide independent constraints on the spatial curvature of ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_K=0.014_{-0.026}^{+0.023}$ (95% C.L.) and the dark energy density of ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=0.722_{-0.026}^{+0.031}$ (68% C.L.). When combining SPT-3G lensing data with SPT-3G CMB anisotropy and BAO data, we find an upper limit on the sum of the neutrino masses of $\sum m_{\nu }<0.30\mathrm{eV}$ (95% C.L.). Due to the different combination of angular scales and sky area, this lensing analysis provides an independent check on lensing measurements by ACT and Planck.« less

We present estimates of line-of-sight distortion fields derived from the 95 and 150 GHz data taken by BICEP2, BICEP3, and the Keck Array up to the 2018 observing season, leading to cosmological constraints and a study of instrumental and astrophysical systematics. Cosmological constraints are derived from three of the distortion fields concerning gravitational lensing from large-scale structure, polarization rotation from magnetic fields or an axion-like field, and the screening effect of patchy reionization. We measure an amplitude of the lensing power spectrum $${A}_{L}^{\phi \phi }=0.95\pm 0.20$$. We constrain polarization rotation, expressed as the coupling constant of a Chern–Simons electromagnetic termmore » g_aγ ≤ 2.6 × 10^-2/H_I, where H_I is the inflationary Hubble parameter, and an amplitude of primordial magnetic fields smoothed over 1 Mpc B_1Mpc ≤ 6.6 nG at 95 GHz. We constrain the rms of optical depth fluctuations in a simple "crinkly surface" model of patchy reionization, finding A^τ < 0.19 (2σ) for the coherence scale of L_c = 100. We show that all of the distortion fields of the 95 and 150 GHz polarization maps are consistent with simulations including lensed ΛCDM, dust, and noise, with no evidence for instrumental systematics. In some cases, the EB and TB quadratic estimators presented here are more sensitive than our previous map-based null tests at identifying and rejecting spurious B-modes that might arise from instrumental effects. Finally, we verify that the standard deprojection filtering in the BICEP/Keck data processing is effective at removing temperature to polarization leakage.« less

The BICEP/Keck series of experiments target the cosmic microwave background at degree-scale resolution from the South Pole. Over the next few years, the “Stage-3” BICEP Array (BA) telescope will improve the program’s frequency coverage and sensitivity to primordial B-mode polarization by an order of magnitude. The first receiver in the array, BA1, began observing at 30/40 GHz in early 2020. The next two receivers, BA2 and BA3, are currently being assembled and will map the southern sky at frequencies ranging from 95 to 150 GHz. Common to all BA receivers is a refractive, on-axis, cryogenic optical design that focuses microwavemore » radiation onto a focal plane populated with antenna-coupled bolometers. High-performance antireflective coatings up to 760 mm in aperture are needed for each element in the optical chain, and must withstand repeated thermal cycles down to 4 K. Here, in this work, we present the design and fabrication of the 30/40 GHz anti-reflection coatings for the recently deployed BA1 receiver, with indices matched to its various polyethylene, nylon and alumina optical components. We describe an epoxy coating technique designed for alumina optics, which achieves better than 80% transmission at room temperature. For polyethylene optical elements, we present a new heat-compression approach that allows low-density polytetrafluoroethylene AR layers to reach sub-percent reflected power. We describe the planned use of these methods for the next BA cryostats, which may inform technological choices for future small-aperture telescopes of the CMB-S4 experiment.« less

We characterize Galactic dust filaments by correlating BICEP/Keck and Planck data with polarization templates based on neutral hydrogen (H i) observations. Dust polarization is important for both our understanding of astrophysical processes in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the search for primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In the diffuse ISM, H i is strongly correlated with the dust and partly organized into filaments that are aligned with the local magnetic field. We analyze the deep BICEP/Keck data at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, over the low-column-density region of sky where BICEP/Keck has set the best limitsmore » on primordial gravitational waves. We separate the H i emission into distinct velocity components and detect dust polarization correlated with the local Galactic H i but not with the H i associated with Magellanic Stream i. We present a robust, multifrequency detection of polarized dust emission correlated with the filamentary H i morphology template down to 95 GHz. For assessing its utility for foreground cleaning, we report that the Hi morphology template correlates in B modes at a ~10%–65% level over the multipole range 20 < ℓ < 200 with the BICEP/Keck maps, which contain contributions from dust, CMB, and noise components. We measure the spectral index of the filamentary dust component spectral energy distribution to be β = 1.54 ± 0.13. We find no evidence for decorrelation in this region between the filaments and the rest of the dust field or from the inclusion of dust associated with the intermediate velocity H i. Finally, we explore the morphological parameter space in the H i-based filamentary model.« less

Abstract We present the first measurements of asteroids in millimeter wavelength data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT), which is used primarily to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We analyze maps of two ∼270 deg2 sky regions near the ecliptic plane, each observed with the SPTpol camera ∼100 times over 1 month. We subtract the mean of all maps of a given field, removing static sky signal, and then average the mean-subtracted maps at known asteroid locations. We detect three asteroids—(324) Bamberga, (13) Egeria, and (22) Kalliope—with signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) of 11.2, 10.4, and 6.1, respectively, at 2.0 mmmore » (150 GHz); we also detect (324) Bamberga with an S/N of 4.1 at 3.2 mm (95 GHz). We place constraints on these asteroids’ effective emissivities, brightness temperatures, and light-curve modulation amplitude. Our flux density measurements of (324) Bamberga and (13) Egeria roughly agree with predictions, while our measurements of (22) Kalliope suggest lower flux, corresponding to effective emissivities of 0.64 ± 0.11 at 2.0 and < 0.47 at 3.2 mm. We predict the asteroids detectable in other SPT data sets and find good agreement with detections of (772) Tanete and (1093) Freda in recent data from the SPT-3G camera, which has ∼10× the mapping speed of SPTpol. This work is the first focused analysis of asteroids in data from CMB surveys, and it demonstrates we can repurpose historic and future data sets for asteroid studies. Future SPT measurements can help constrain the distribution of surface properties over a larger asteroid population.« less

Abstract We report on the design and performance of the B icep3 instrument and its first three-year data set collected from 2016 to 2018. B icep3 is a 52 cm aperture refracting telescope designed to observe the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on degree angular scales at 95 GHz. It started science observation at the South Pole in 2016 with 2400 antenna-coupled transition-edge sensor bolometers. The receiver first demonstrated new technologies such as large-diameter alumina optics, Zotefoam infrared filters, and flux-activated SQUIDs, allowing ∼10× higher optical throughput compared to the Keck design. B icep3 achieved instrument noise equivalentmore » temperatures of 9.2, 6.8, and 7.1 $\mu {\mathrm{K}}_{\mathrm{CMB}}\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}$ and reached Stokes Q and U map depths of 5.9, 4.4, and 4.4 μ K arcmin in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively. The combined three-year data set achieved a polarization map depth of 2.8 μ K arcmin over an effective area of 585 square degrees, which is the deepest CMB polarization map made to date at 95 GHz.« less

We present an improved search for axionlike polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with observations from the Keck Array. An all-sky, temporally sinusoidal rotation of CMB polarization, equivalent to a time-variable cosmic birefringence, is an observable manifestation of a local axion field and potentially allows a CMB polarimeter to detect axionlike dark matter directly. We describe improvements to the method presented in previous work, and we demonstrate the updated method with an expanded dataset consisting of the 2012–2015 observing seasons. We set limits on the axion-photon coupling constant for mass $m$ in the range $more »$ 10 - 23 – 10 - 18 eV , which corresponds to oscillation periods on the order of hours to years. Our results are consistent with the background model. For periods between 1 and 30 d ( $1.6\times {10}^{-21}\le m\le 4.8\times {10}^{-20}\mathrm{eV}$), the 95%-confidence upper limits on rotation amplitude are approximately constant with a median of 0.27°, which constrains the axion-photon coupling constant to $g_{\phi \gamma }<(4.5\times {10}^{-12}{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1})m/\left({10}^{-21}\mathrm{eV}\right)$, if axionlike particles constitute all of the dark matter. More than half of the collected BICEP dataset has yet to be analyzed, and several current and future CMB polarimetry experiments can apply the methods presented here to achieve comparable or superior constraints. In the coming years, oscillation measurements can achieve the sensitivity to rule out unexplored regions of the axion parameter space.« less

Abstract SPT-3G is the third survey receiver operating on the South Pole Telescope dedicated to high-resolution observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Sensitive measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB provide a powerful data set for constraining cosmology. Additionally, CMB surveys with arcminute-scale resolution are capable of detecting galaxy clusters, millimeter-wave bright galaxies, and a variety of transient phenomena. The SPT-3G instrument provides a significant improvement in mapping speed over its predecessors, SPT-SZ and SPTpol. The broadband optics design of the instrument achieves a 430 mm diameter image plane across observing bands of 95, 150, andmore » 220 GHz, with 1.2′ FWHM beam response at 150 GHz. In the receiver, this image plane is populated with 2690 dual-polarization, trichroic pixels (∼16,000 detectors) read out using a 68× digital frequency-domain multiplexing readout system. In 2018, SPT-3G began a multiyear survey of 1500 deg ² of the southern sky. We summarize the unique optical, cryogenic, detector, and readout technologies employed in SPT-3G, and we report on the integrated performance of the instrument.« less

Here, we present results from an analysis of all data taken by the BICEP2, Keck Array, and BICEP3 CMB polarization experiments up to and including the 2018 observing season. We add additional Keck Array observations at 220 GHz and BICEP3 observations at 95 GHz to the previous 95/150/220 GHz dataset. The Q/U maps now reach depths of 2.8, 2.8, and 8.8 μK_CMB arcmin at 95,150, and 220 GHz, respectively, over an effective area of ≈ 600 square degrees at 95 GHz and ≈ 400 square degrees at 150 and 220 GHz. The 220 GHz maps now achieve a signal-to-noise ratiomore » on polarized dust emission exceeding that of Planck at 353 GHz. We take auto- and cross-spectra between these maps and publicly available WMAP and Planck maps at frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz and evaluate the joint likelihood of the spectra versus a multicomponent model of lensed ΛCDM + r + dust + synchrotron + noise . The foreground model has seven parameters, and no longer requires a prior on the frequency spectral index of the dust emission taken from measurements on other regions of the sky. This model is an adequate description of the data at the current noise levels. The likelihood analysis yields the constraint r _0.05 < 0.036 at 95% confidence. Running maximum likelihood search on simulations we obtain unbiased results and find that σ(r) = 0.009 . These are the strongest constraints to date on primordial gravitational waves.« less