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Designs for a large-aperture telescope to map the CMB 10× faster

2016; Optica Publishing Group; Volume: 55; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1364/ao.55.001688

0003-6935

Michael D. Niemack,

Cosmology and Gravitation Theories

Current large-aperture cosmic microwave background (CMB) telescopes have nearly maximized the number of detectors that can be illuminated while maintaining diffraction-limited image quality. The polarization-sensitive detector arrays being deployed in these telescopes in the next few years will have roughly 10⁴ detectors. Increasing the mapping speed of future instruments by at least an order of magnitude is important to enable precise probes of the inflationary paradigm in the first fraction of a second after the big bang and provide strong constraints on cosmological parameters. The CMB community has begun planning a next generation "Stage IV" CMB project that will be comprised of multiple telescopes with between 10⁵-10⁶ detectors to pursue these goals. This paper introduces the new crossed Dragone telescope and receiver optics designs that increase the usable diffraction-limited field-of-view, and therefore the mapping speed, by an order of magnitude compared to the upcoming generation of large-aperture instruments. Polarization systematics and engineering considerations are presented, including a preliminary receiver model to demonstrate that these designs will enable high efficiency illumination of >10⁵ detectors in a next generation CMB telescope.