The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Optics, Receiver, and Polarimetry

Aboobaker, Asad M.; Ade, Peter; Araujo, Derek; Aubin, François; Baccigalupi, Carlo; Bao, Chaoyun; Chapman, Daniel; Didier, Joy; Dobbs, Matt; Geach, Christopher; Grainger, Will; Hanany, Shaul; Helson, Kyle; Hillbrand, Seth; Hubmayr, Johannes; Jaffe, Andrew; Johnson, Bradley; Jones, Terry; Klein, Jeff; Korotkov, Andrei; Lee, Adrian; Levinson, Lorne; Limon, Michele; MacDermid, Kevin; Matsumura, Tomotake; Miller, Amber D.; Milligan, Michael; Raach, Kate; Reichborn-Kjennerud, Britt; Sagiv, Ilan; Savini, Giorgio; Spencer, Locke; Tucker, Carole; Tucker, Gregory S.; Westbrook, Benjamin; Young, Karl; Zilic, Kyle

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/aae434

Title: The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Optics, Receiver, and Polarimetry

Journal Article · Tue Nov 06 00:00:00 EST 2018 · The Astrophysical Journal. Supplement Series (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aae434· OSTI ID:1544087

Aboobaker, Asad M.;

;

; Baccigalupi, Carlo; Bao, Chaoyun; Chapman, Daniel;

; Dobbs, Matt; Geach, Christopher; Grainger, Will;

;

; Hillbrand, Seth; Hubmayr, Johannes;

; Johnson, Bradley; Jones, Terry; Klein, Jeff; Korotkov, Andrei more »

The E and B Experiment (EBEX) was a long-duration balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter that flew over Antarctica in 2012. We describe the experiment's optical system, receiver, and polarimetric method and discuss their in-flight performance. EBEX had three frequency bands centered on 150, 250, and 410 GHz. To make effective use of limited mass and space, we created a 115 cm² sr high-throughput optical system that had two ambient temperature mirrors and four antireflection-coated polyethylene lenses per focal plane. All frequency bands shared the same optical train. Polarimetry was achieved with a continuously rotating achromatic half-wave plate (AHWP) that was levitated with a superconducting magnetic bearing (SMB). This is the first use of an SMB in astrophysics. Rotation stability was 0.45% over a period of 10 hr, and angular position accuracy was 0$$^{°}_{.}$$1. The measured modulation efficiency was above 90% for all bands. To our knowledge the 109% fractional bandwidth of the AHWP was the broadest implemented to date. The receiver, composed of one lens and the AHWP at a temperature of 4 K, the polarizing grid and other lenses at 1 K, and the two focal planes at 0.25 K, performed according to specifications, giving focal plane temperature stability with a fluctuation power spectrum that had a 1/f knee at 2 mHz. EBEX was the first balloon-borne instrument to implement technologies characteristic of modern CMB polarimeters, including high-throughput optical systems, and large arrays of transition edge sensor bolometric detectors with multiplexed readouts.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Contributing Organization:: The EBEX Collaboration

OSTI ID:: 1544087

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal. Supplement Series (Online), Vol. 239, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4365

Publisher:: American Astronomical Society/IOPCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 18 works

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Systematic effects induced by half-wave plate precession into measurements of the cosmic microwave background polarization D’Alessandro, G.; Mele, L.; Columbro, F. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 627 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834495	journal	July 2019
Balloon-borne Cosmic Microwave Background experiments Masi, Silvia; Coppolecchia, A.; Battistelli, E. EPJ Web of Conferences, Vol. 209 https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201920901046	journal	January 2019
Intensity-coupled Polarization in Instruments with a Continuously Rotating Half-wave Plate Didier, Joy; Miller, Amber D.; Araujo, Derek The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 876, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab0f36	journal	May 2019
The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Gondola, Attitude Control, and Control Software Aboobaker, Asad; Ade, Peter; Araujo, Derek The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 239, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aae435	journal	November 2018
The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Detectors and Readout Abitbol, Maximilian; Aboobaker, Asad M.; Ade, Peter The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 239, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aae436	journal	November 2018
The EBEX Balloon-Borne Experiment - Gondola, Attitude Control, and Control Software Collaboration, The EBEX; Aboobaker, Asad; Ade, Peter arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1702.07020	text	January 2017
Intensity-Coupled-Polarization in Instruments with a Continuously Rotating Half-Wave Plate Didier, Joy; Miller, Amber D.; Araujo, Derek arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1711.01314	text	January 2017

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