Instrument overview of Taurus: a balloon-borne CMB and dust polarization experiment
/ Authors
Jared L. May, A. Adler, J. Austermann, S. J. Benton, Rick Bihary, Malcolm Durkin, S. Duff, J. Filippini, A. Fraisse, Thomas Gascard
and 13 more authors
Sho M. Gibbs, S. Gourapura, J. Gudmundsson, John W. Hartley, J. Hubmayr, W. Jones, Steven Li, J. Nagy, Kate Okun, Ivan L. Padilla, L. J. Romualdez, Simon Tartakovsky, M. Vissers
/ Abstract
Taurus is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment optimized to map the E-mode polarization and Galactic foregrounds at the largest angular scales (𝓁 < 30) and improve measurements of the optical depth to reionization (τ). This will pave the way for improved measurements of the sum of neutrino masses in combination with high-resolution CMB data while also testing the ΛCDM model on large angular scales and providing high-frequency maps of polarized dust foregrounds to the CMB community. These measurements take advantage of the low-loading environment found in the stratosphere and are enabled by NASA’s superpressure balloon platform, which provides access to 70% of the sky with a launch from Wanaka, New Zealand. Here we describe a general overview of Taurus, with an emphasis on the instrument design. Taurus will employ more than 10,000 100mK transition edge sensor bolometers distributed across two low-frequency (150, 220GHz) and one high-frequency (280, 350GHz) dichroic receivers. The liquid helium cryostat housing the detectors and optics is supported by a lightweight gondola. The payload is designed to meet the challenges in mass, power, and thermal control posed by the super-pressure platform. The instrument and scan strategy are optimized for rigorous control of instrumental systematics, enabling high-fidelity linear polarization measurements on the largest angular scales.
Journal: Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation
DOI: 10.1117/12.3019051