307 research outputs found
Recovery of Large Angular Scale CMB Polarization for Instruments Employing Variable-delay Polarization Modulators
Variable-delay Polarization Modulators (VPMs) are currently being implemented
in experiments designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave
background on large angular scales because of their capability for providing
rapid, front-end polarization modulation and control over systematic errors.
Despite the advantages provided by the VPM, it is important to identify and
mitigate any time-varying effects that leak into the synchronously modulated
component of the signal. In this paper, the effect of emission from a K
VPM on the system performance is considered and addressed. Though instrument
design can greatly reduce the influence of modulated VPM emission, some
residual modulated signal is expected. VPM emission is treated in the presence
of rotational misalignments and temperature variation. Simulations of
time-ordered data are used to evaluate the effect of these residual errors on
the power spectrum. The analysis and modeling in this paper guides
experimentalists on the critical aspects of observations using VPMs as
front-end modulators. By implementing the characterizations and controls as
described, front-end VPM modulation can be very powerful for mitigating
noise in large angular scale polarimetric surveys. None of the systematic
errors studied fundamentally limit the detection and characterization of
B-modes on large scales for a tensor-to-scalar ratio of . Indeed,
is achievable with commensurately improved characterizations and
controls.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, matches published versio
Modulation of CMB polarization with a warm rapidly-rotating half-wave plate on the Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) instrument
We evaluate the modulation of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization
using a rapidly-rotating, half-wave plate (HWP) on the Atacama B-Mode Search
(ABS). After demodulating the time-ordered-data (TOD), we find a significant
reduction of atmospheric fluctuations. The demodulated TOD is stable on time
scales of 500-1000 seconds, corresponding to frequencies of 1-2 mHz. This
facilitates recovery of cosmological information at large angular scales, which
are typically available only from balloon-borne or satellite experiments. This
technique also achieves a sensitive measurement of celestial polarization
without differencing the TOD of paired detectors sensitive to two orthogonal
linear polarizations. This is the first demonstration of the ability to remove
atmospheric contamination at these levels from a ground-based platform using a
rapidly-rotating HWP.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, Published in RSI under the title "Modulation of
cosmic microwave background polarization with a warm rapidly rotating
half-wave plate on the Atacama B-Mode Search instrument.
Systematic effects from an ambient-temperature, continuously-rotating half-wave plate
We present an evaluation of systematic effects associated with a
continuously-rotating, ambient-temperature half-wave plate (HWP) based on two
seasons of data from the Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) experiment located in the
Atacama Desert of Chile. The ABS experiment is a microwave telescope sensitive
at 145 GHz. Here we present our in-field evaluation of celestial (CMB plus
galactic foreground) temperature-to-polarization leakage. We decompose the
leakage into scalar, dipole, and quadrupole leakage terms. We report a scalar
leakage of ~0.01%, consistent with model expectations and an order of magnitude
smaller than other CMB experiments have reported. No significant dipole or
quadrupole terms are detected; we constrain each to be <0.07% (95% confidence),
limited by statistical uncertainty in our measurement. Dipole and quadrupole
leakage at this level lead to systematic error on r<0.01 before any mitigation
due to scan cross-linking or boresight rotation. The measured scalar leakage
and the theoretical level of dipole and quadrupole leakage produce systematic
error of r<0.001 for the ABS survey and focal-plane layout before any data
correction such as so-called deprojection. This demonstrates that ABS achieves
significant beam systematic error mitigation from its HWP and shows the promise
of continuously-rotating HWPs for future experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; revision to submitted version, Fig. 5 and Eqs.
(14) and (15) corrected; added Fig. 9 and description, text revisions for
clarification, Fig. 5 revised for better calibration, corrected labeling
errors and plotting bugs in Fig. 3, 4, and Eq. (14) and (15
Prevention of coronary restenosis by stenting
Balloon angioplasty fails to provide acceptable long-term results for a significant proportion of patients. An intravascular mechanical support, developed with the aim of preventing restenosis and acute closure of diseased arteries after transluminal angioplasty, was implanted in 44 patients (39 male and five female), aged from 35 to 70 years (mean 56 years) with documented restenosis of native coronary artery (41 stents) and bypass grafts (12 stents). In the group of bypass graft patients there was no local restenosis and no major complication. In patients in whom stents were placed in native coronary arteries, the complication rate was higher (two patients died after coronary bypass surgery). One patient died suddenly at home. Except for one patient, in whom a new lesion developed proximally with extension into the stent, no case of restenosis could be observed. Despite the still relatively high complication rate, we feel that stenting may present a rational approach to the unresolved problem of restenosis after coronary angioplast
Characterizing Atacama B-mode Search Detectors with a Half-Wave Plate
The Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) instrument is a cryogenic (10 K)
crossed-Dragone telescope located at an elevation of 5190 m in the Atacama
Desert in Chile that observed for three seasons between February 2012 and
October 2014. ABS observed the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at large
angular scales () to limit the B-mode polarization spectrum around
the primordial B-mode peak from inflationary gravity waves at .
The ABS focal plane consists of 480 transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers.
They are coupled to orthogonal polarizations from a planar ortho-mode
transducer (OMT) and observe at 145 GHz. ABS employs an ambient-temperature,
rapidly rotating half-wave plate (HWP) to mitigate systematic effects and move
the signal band away from atmospheric noise, allowing for the recovery of
large angular scales. We discuss how the signal at the second harmonic of the
HWP rotation frequency can be used for data selection and for monitoring the
detector responsivities.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, conference proceedings submitted to the Journal
of Low Temperature Detector
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