We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the BICEP2 and Keck Array cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments up to and including the 2014 observing season. This ...includes the first Keck Array observations at 95 GHz. The maps reach a depth of 50 nK deg in Stokes Q and U in the 150 GHz band and 127 nK deg in the 95 GHz band. We take auto- and cross-spectra between these maps and publicly available maps from WMAP and Planck at frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. An excess over lensed ΛCDM is detected at modest significance in the 95×150 BB spectrum, and is consistent with the dust contribution expected from our previous work. No significant evidence for synchrotron emission is found in spectra such as 23×95, or for correlation between the dust and synchrotron sky patterns in spectra such as 23×353. We take the likelihood of all the spectra for a multicomponent model including lensed ΛCDM, dust, synchrotron, and a possible contribution from inflationary gravitational waves (as parametrized by the tensor-to-scalar ratio r) using priors on the frequency spectral behaviors of dust and synchrotron emission from previous analyses of WMAP and Planck data in other regions of the sky. This analysis yields an upper limit r_{0.05}<0.09 at 95% confidence, which is robust to variations explored in analysis and priors. Combining these B-mode results with the (more model-dependent) constraints from Planck analysis of CMB temperature plus baryon acoustic oscillations and other data yields a combined limit r_{0.05}<0.07 at 95% confidence. These are the strongest constraints to date on inflationary gravitational waves.
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We report results from the BICEP2 experiment, a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter specifically designed to search for the signal of inflationary gravitational waves in the B-mode power ...spectrum around ℓ∼80. The telescope comprised a 26 cm aperture all-cold refracting optical system equipped with a focal plane of 512 antenna coupled transition edge sensor 150 GHz bolometers each with temperature sensitivity of ≈300 μK(CMB)√s. BICEP2 observed from the South Pole for three seasons from 2010 to 2012. A low-foreground region of sky with an effective area of 380 square deg was observed to a depth of 87 nK deg in Stokes Q and U. In this paper we describe the observations, data reduction, maps, simulations, and results. We find an excess of B-mode power over the base lensed-ΛCDM expectation in the range 30 < ℓ < 150, inconsistent with the null hypothesis at a significance of >5σ. Through jackknife tests and simulations based on detailed calibration measurements we show that systematic contamination is much smaller than the observed excess. Cross correlating against WMAP 23 GHz maps we find that Galactic synchrotron makes a negligible contribution to the observed signal. We also examine a number of available models of polarized dust emission and find that at their default parameter values they predict power ∼(5-10)× smaller than the observed excess signal (with no significant cross-correlation with our maps). However, these models are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal. Cross correlating BICEP2 against 100 GHz maps from the BICEP1 experiment, the excess signal is confirmed with 3σ significance and its spectral index is found to be consistent with that of the CMB, disfavoring dust at 1.7σ. The observed B-mode power spectrum is well fit by a lensed-ΛCDM+tensor theoretical model with tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.20_(-0.05)(+0.07), with r = 0 disfavored at 7.0σ. Accounting for the contribution of foreground, dust will shift this value downward by an amount which will be better constrained with upcoming data sets.
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We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the bicep2/Keck CMB polarization experiments up to and including the 2015 observing season. This includes the first Keck Array observations at ...220 GHz and additional observations at 95 and 150 GHz. The Q and U maps reach depths of 5.2, 2.9, and 26 μK_{CMB} arcmin at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, respectively, over an effective area of ≈400 square degrees. The 220 GHz maps achieve a signal to noise on polarized dust emission approximately equal to 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. We 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 we impose priors on some of these using external information from Planck and WMAP derived from larger regions of sky. The model is shown to be an adequate description of the data at the current noise levels. The likelihood analysis yields the constraint r_{0.05}<0.07 at 95% confidence, which tightens to r_{0.05}<0.06 in conjunction with Planck temperature measurements and other data. The lensing signal is detected at 8.8σ significance. Running a maximum likelihood search on simulations we obtain unbiased results and find that σ(r)=0.020. These are the strongest constraints to date on primordial gravitational waves.
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We present the strongest constraints to date on anisotropies of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization rotation derived from 150 GHz data taken by the BICEP2 & Keck Array CMB experiments up ...to and including the 2014 observing season (BK14). The definition of the polarization angle in BK14 maps has gone through self-calibration in which the overall angle is adjusted to minimize the observed TB and EB power spectra. After this procedure, the QU maps lose sensitivity to a uniform polarization rotation but are still sensitive to anisotropies of polarization rotation. This analysis places constraints on the anisotropies of polarization rotation, which could be generated by CMB photons interacting with axionlike pseudoscalar fields or Faraday rotation induced by primordial magnetic fields. The sensitivity of BK14 maps (∼3 μK−arc min) makes it possible to reconstruct anisotropies of the polarization rotation angle and measure their angular power spectrum much more precisely than previous attempts. Our data are found to be consistent with no polarization rotation anisotropies, improving the upper bound on the amplitude of the rotation angle spectrum by roughly an order of magnitude compared to the previous best constraints. Our results lead to an order of magnitude better constraint on the coupling constant of the Chern-Simons electromagnetic term gaγ≤7.2×10−2/HI (95% confidence) than the constraint derived from the B-mode spectrum, where HI is the inflationary Hubble scale. This constraint leads to a limit on the decay constant of 10−6≲fa/Mpl at mass range of 10−33≤ma≤10−28 eV for r=0.01, assuming gaγ∼α/(2πfa) with α denoting the fine structure constant. The upper bound on the amplitude of the primordial magnetic fields is 30 nG (95% confidence) from the polarization rotation anisotropies.
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Inflation is the leading theory of the first instant of the universe. Inflation, which postulates that the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion an instant after its birth, provides ...convincing explanation for cosmological observations. Recent advancements in detector technology have opened opportunities to explore primordial gravitational waves generated by the inflation through “B-mode” (divergent-free) polarization pattern embedded in the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. If detected, these signals would provide strong evidence for inflation, point to the correct model for inflation, and open a window to physics at ultra-high energies. LiteBIRD is a satellite mission with a goal of detecting degree-and-larger-angular-scale B-mode polarization. LiteBIRD will observe at the second Lagrange point with a 400 mm diameter telescope and 2622 detectors. It will survey the entire sky with 15 frequency bands from 40 to 400 GHz to measure and subtract foregrounds. The US LiteBIRD team is proposing to deliver sub-Kelvin instruments that include detectors and readout electronics. A lenslet-coupled sinuous antenna array will cover low-frequency bands (40–235 GHz) with four frequency arrangements of trichroic pixels. An orthomode-transducer-coupled corrugated horn array will cover high-frequency bands (280–402 GHz) with three types of single frequency detectors. The detectors will be made with transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers cooled to a 100 milli-Kelvin base temperature by an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator. The TES bolometers will be read out using digital frequency multiplexing with Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) amplifiers. Up to 78 bolometers will be multiplexed with a single SQUID amplifier. We report on the sub-Kelvin instrument design and ongoing developments for the LiteBIRD mission.
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 μ KCMB 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 ratio 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 Λ CDM + 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 r0.05 < 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.
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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 equivalent temperatures of 9.2, 6.8, and 7.1
μ
K
CMB
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.
Large arrays of cryogenic sensors for various imaging applications ranging across x-ray, gamma-ray, cosmic microwave background, mm/sub-mm, as well as particle detection increasingly rely on ...superconducting microresonators for high multiplexing factors. These microresonators take the form of microwave SQUIDs that couple to transition-edge sensors or microwave kinetic inductance detectors. In principle, such arrays can be read out with vastly scalable software-defined radio using suitable FPGAs, ADCs and DACs. In this work, we share plans and show initial results for SLAC Microresonator Radio Frequency (SMuRF) electronics, a next-generation control and readout system for superconducting microresonators. SMuRF electronics are unique in their implementation of specialized algorithms for closed-loop tone tracking, which consists of fast feedback and feedforward to each resonator’s excitation parameters based on transmission measurements. Closed-loop tone tracking enables improved system linearity, a significant increase in sensor count per readout line, and the possibility of overcoupled resonator designs for enhanced dynamic range. Low-bandwidth prototype electronics were used to demonstrate closed-loop tone tracking on twelve 300-kHz-wide microwave SQUID resonators, spaced at
∼
6 MHz with center frequencies
∼
5–6 GHz. We achieve multi-kHz tracking bandwidth and demonstrate that the noise floor of the electronics is subdominant to the noise intrinsic in the multiplexer.
Bicep3
is a 550-mm aperture telescope with cold, on-axis, refractive optics designed to observe at the 95-GHz band from the South Pole. It is the newest member of the
Bicep
/
Keck
family of ...inflationary probes specifically designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales.
Bicep3
is designed to house 1280 dual-polarization pixels, which, when fully populated, totals to
∼
9
×
the number of pixels in a single
Keck
95-GHz receiver, thus further advancing the
Bicep
/
Keck
program’s 95 GHz mapping speed.
Bicep3
was deployed during the austral summer of 2014–2015 with nine detector tiles, to be increased to its full capacity of 20 in the second season. After instrument characterization, measurements were taken, and CMB observation commenced in April 2015. Together with multi-frequency observation data from Planck,
Bicep2
, and the
Keck Array
,
Bicep3
is projected to set upper limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio to
r
≲
0.03
at 95 % C.L.
ABSTRACT We present measurements of polarization lensing using the 150 GHz maps, which include all data taken by the BICEP2 and Keck Array Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiments up to ...and including the 2014 observing season (BK14). Despite their modest angular resolution ( ), the excellent sensitivity (∼3 K-arcmin) of these maps makes it possible to directly reconstruct the lensing potential using only information at larger angular scales ( ). From the auto-spectrum of the reconstructed potential, we measure an amplitude of the spectrum to be (Planck ΛCDM prediction corresponds to ) and reject the no-lensing hypothesis at , which is the highest significance achieved to date using an EB lensing estimator. Taking the cross-spectrum of the reconstructed potential with the Planck 2015 lensing map yields . These direct measurements of are consistent with the ΛCDM cosmology and with that derived from the previously reported BK14 B-mode auto-spectrum ( ). We perform a series of null tests and consistency checks to show that these results are robust against systematics and are insensitive to analysis choices. These results unambiguously demonstrate that the B modes previously reported by BICEP/Keck at intermediate angular scales ( ) are dominated by gravitational lensing. The good agreement between the lensing amplitudes obtained from the lensing reconstruction and B-mode spectrum starts to place constraints on any alternative cosmological sources of B modes at these angular scales.
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