QUBIC Technical Design Report
astro-ph.IM
/ Authors
J. Aumont, S. Banfi, P. Battaglia, E. S. Battistelli, A. Baù, B. Bélier, D. Bennett, L. Bergé, J. Ph. Bernard, M. Bersanelli
and 89 more authors
M. A. Bigot-Sazy, N. Bleurvacq, G. Bordier, J. Brossard, E. F. Bunn, D. Buzi, A. Buzzelli, D. Cammilleri, F. Cavaliere, P. Chanial, C. Chapron, G. Coppi, A. Coppolecchia, F. Couchot, R. D'Agostino, G. D'Alessandro, P. de Bernardis, G. De Gasperis, M. De Petris, T. Decourcelle, F. Del Torto, L. Dumoulin, A. Etchegoyen,
/ Abstract
QUBIC is an instrument aiming at measuring the B mode polarisation anisotropies at medium scales angular scales (30-200 multipoles). The search for the primordial CMB B-mode polarization signal is challenging, because of many difficulties: smallness of the expected signal, instrumental systematics that could possibly induce polarization leakage from the large E signal into B, brighter than anticipated polarized foregrounds (dust) reducing to zero the initial hope of finding sky regions clean enough to have a direct primordial B-modes observation. The QUBIC instrument is designed to address all aspects of this challenge with a novel kind of instrument, a Bolometric Interferometer, combining the background-limited sensitivity of Transition-Edge-Sensors and the control of systematics allowed by the observation of interference fringe patterns, while operating at two frequencies to disentangle polarized foregrounds from primordial B mode polarization. Its characteristics are described in details in this Technological Design Report.