The Polatron: A Millimeter-Wave Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimeter for the OVRO 5.5 m Telescope
/ Authors
B. Philhour, B. Keating, P. Ade, R. Bhatia, J. Bock, S. Church, J. Glenn, J. Hinderks, V. Hristov, W. Jones
and 9 more authors
M. Kamionkowski, D. Kumar, A. Lange, J. Leong, D. Marrone, B. Mason, P. Mason, M. M. Shuman, G. Sirbi
/ Abstract
We describe the development of a bolometric receiver designed to measure the arcminute-scale polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The Polatron will be mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the 5.5 m telescope at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO). The receiver will measure both the Q and U Stokes parameters over a 20% pass-band centered near 100 GHz, with the input polarization signal modulated at ~0.6 Hz by a rotating, birefringent, quartz half-wave plate. In six months of observation we plan to observe ~400 2.5 arcminute pixels in a ring about the North Celestial Pole to a precision of ~6 \mu K/pixel in each of Q and U, adequate to unambiguously detect CMB polarization at levels predicted by current models.
Journal: arXiv: Astrophysics