The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE): a nulling polarimeter for cosmic microwave background observations

被引:554
作者
Kogut, A. [1 ]
Fixsen, D. J. [1 ,2 ]
Chuss, D. T. [1 ]
Dotson, J. [3 ]
Dwek, E. [1 ]
Halpern, M. [4 ]
Hinshaw, G. F. [4 ]
Meyer, S. M. [5 ]
Moseley, S. H. [1 ]
Seiffert, M. D. [6 ]
Spergel, D. N. [7 ]
Wollack, E. J. [1 ]
机构
[1] NASA, Goddard Space Flight Ctr, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
[2] Univ Maryland, College Pk, MD 20742 USA
[3] NASA, Ames Res Ctr, Moffett Field, CA 94035 USA
[4] Univ British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V67 1Z1, Canada
[5] Univ Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 USA
[6] CALTECH, Jet Prop Lab, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
[7] Princeton Univ, Dept Astrophys Sci, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA
关键词
CMBR polarisation; CMBR experiments; inflation; reionization; SUBMILLIMETER EMISSION; SPECTRAL DISTORTIONS; INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM; ROCKET MEASUREMENT; RADIATION; ANISOTROPY; POLARIZATION; UNIVERSE; COBE; SCALE;
D O I
10.1088/1475-7516/2011/07/025
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) is a concept for an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The instrument consists of a polarizing Michelson interferometer configured as a nulling polarimeter to measure the difference spectrum between orthogonal linear polarizations from two co-aligned beams. Either input can view the sky or a temperature-controlled absolute reference blackbody calibrator. Rhe proposed instrument can map the absolute intensity and linear polarization (Stokes I, Q, and U parameters) over the full sky in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 mu m wavelength). Multi-moded optics provide background-limited sensitivity using only 4 detectors, while the highly symmetric design and multiple signal modulations provide robust rejection of potential systematic errors. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r < 10(-3) at 5 standard deviations. The rich PIXIE data set can also constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy.
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