112 research outputs found
QUBIC VI: cryogenic half wave plate rotator, design and performances
Inflation Gravity Waves B-Modes polarization detection is the ultimate goal
of modern large angular scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments
around the world. A big effort is undergoing with the deployment of many
ground-based, balloon-borne and satellite experiments using different methods
to separate this faint polarized component from the incoming radiation. One of
the largely used technique is the Stokes Polarimetry that uses a rotating
half-wave plate (HWP) and a linear polarizer to separate and modulate the
polarization components with low residual cross-polarization. This paper
describes the QUBIC Stokes Polarimeter highlighting its design features and its
performances. A common systematic with these devices is the generation of large
spurious signals synchronous with the rotation and proportional to the
emissivity of the optical elements. A key feature of the QUBIC Stokes
Polarimeter is to operate at cryogenic temperature in order to minimize this
unwanted component. Moving efficiently this large optical element at low
temperature constitutes a big engineering challenge in order to reduce friction
power dissipation. Big attention has been given during the designing phase to
minimize the differential thermal contractions between parts. The rotation is
driven by a stepper motor placed outside the cryostat to avoid thermal load
dissipation at cryogenic temperature. The tests and the results presented in
this work show that the QUBIC polarimeter can easily achieve a precision below
0.1{\deg} in positioning simply using the stepper motor precision and the
optical absolute encoder. The rotation induces only few mK of extra power load
on the second cryogenic stage (~ 8 K).Comment: Part of a series of 8 papers on QUBIC to be submitted to a special
issue of JCA
QUBIC instrument for CMB polarization measurements
Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization may reveal the presence of a background of gravitational waves produced during cosmic inflation, providing thus a test of inflationary models. The Q&U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) is an experiment designed to measure the CMB polarization. It is based on the novel concept of bolometric interferometry, which combines the sensitivity of bolometric detectors with the properties of beam synthesis and control of calibration offered by interferometers. To modulate and extract the input polarized signal of the CMB, QUBIC exploits Stokes polarimetry based on a rotating half-wave plate (HWP). In this work, we illustrate the design of the QUBIC instrument, focusing on the polarization modulation system, and we present preliminary results of beam calibrations and the performance of the HWP rotator at 300 K
Detection chain and electronic readout of the QUBIC instrument
The Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) Technical Demonstrator (TD) aiming to shows the feasibility of the combination of interferometry and bolometric detection. The electronic readout system is based on an array of 128 NbSi Transition Edge Sensors cooled at 350mK readout with 128 SQUIDs at 1K controlled and amplified by an Application Specific Integrated Circuit at 40K. This readout design allows a 128:1 Time Domain Multiplexing. We report the design and the performance of the detection chain in this paper. The technological demonstrator unwent a campaign of test in the lab. Evaluation of the QUBIC bolometers and readout electronics includes the measurement of I-V curves, time constant and the Noise Equivalent Power. Currently the mean Noise Equivalent Power is ~ 2 x 10â»ÂčⶠW/âHz
Detection chain and electronic readout of the QUBIC instrument
The Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) Technical Demonstrator (TD) aiming to shows the feasibility of the combination of interferometry and bolometric detection. The electronic readout system is based on an array of 128 NbSi Transition Edge Sensors cooled at 350mK readout with 128 SQUIDs at 1K controlled and amplified by an Application Specific Integrated Circuit at 40K. This readout design allows a 128:1 Time Domain Multiplexing. We report the design and the performance of the detection chain in this paper. The technological demonstrator unwent a campaign of test in the lab. Evaluation of the QUBIC bolometers and readout electronics includes the measurement of I-V curves, time constant and the Noise Equivalent Power. Currently the mean Noise Equivalent Power is ~ 2 x 10â»ÂčⶠW/âHz
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