50 research outputs found
Optical modeling and polarization calibration for CMB measurements with ACTPol and Advanced ACTPol
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) is a polarization
sensitive upgrade to the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Located at an elevation
of 5190 m, ACTPol measures the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature
and polarization with arcminute-scale angular resolution. Calibration of the
detector angles is a critical step in producing maps of the CMB polarization.
Polarization angle offsets in the detector calibration can cause leakage in
polarization from E to B modes and induce a spurious signal in the EB and TB
cross correlations, which eliminates our ability to measure potential
cosmological sources of EB and TB signals, such as cosmic birefringence. We
present our optical modeling and measurements associated with calibrating the
detector angles in ACTPol.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, conference proceedings submitted to Proceedings
of SPIE; added reference in section 2 and merged repeated referenc
Results from the Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) Experiment
The Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) is an experiment designed to measure cosmic
microwave background (CMB) polarization at large angular scales (). It
operated from the ACT site at 5190~m elevation in northern Chile at 145 GHz
with a net sensitivity (NEQ) of 41 K. It employed an
ambient-temperature sapphire half-wave plate rotating at 2.55 Hz to modulate
the incident polarization signal and reduce systematic effects. We report here
on the analysis of data from a 2400 deg patch of sky centered at
declination and right ascension . We perform a blind
analysis. After unblinding, we find agreement with the Planck TE and EE
measurements on the same region of sky. We marginally detect polarized dust
emission and give an upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of (95%
cl) with the equivalent of 100 on-sky days of observation. We also present a
new measurement of the polarization of Tau A and introduce new methods
associated with HWP-based observations.Comment: 38 pages, 11 figure
Strong detection of the CMB lensingxgalaxy weak lensingcross-correlation from ACT-DR4,PlanckLegacy and KiDS-1000
We measure the cross-correlation between galaxy weak lensing data from the
Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS-1000, DR4) and cosmic microwave background (CMB)
lensing data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT, DR4) and the Planck
Legacy survey. We use two samples of source galaxies, selected with photometric
redshifts, and , which produce a
combined detection significance of the CMB lensing/weak galaxy lensing
cross-spectrum of . With the lower redshift galaxy sample, for which
the cross-correlation is detected at a significance of , we present
joint cosmological constraints on the matter density parameter, , and the matter fluctuation amplitude parameter, , marginalising
over three nuisance parameters that model our uncertainty in the redshift and
shear calibration, and the intrinsic alignment of galaxies. We find our
measurement to be consistent with the best-fitting flat CDM
cosmological models from both Planck and KiDS-1000. We demonstrate the capacity
of CMB-weak lensing cross-correlations to set constraints on either the
redshift or shear calibration, by analysing a previously unused high-redshift
KiDS galaxy sample , with the cross-correlation detected at
a significance of . This analysis provides an independent assessment
for the accuracy of redshift measurements in a regime that is challenging to
calibrate directly owing to known incompleteness in spectroscopic surveys.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 1 tables, submitted to A&
Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Component-separated maps of CMB temperature and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect
Optimal analyses of many signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) require map-level extraction of individual components in the microwave sky, rather than measurements at the power spectrum level alone. To date, nearly all map-level component separation in CMB analyses has been performed exclusively using satellite data. In this paper, we implement a component separation method based on the internal linear combination (ILC) approach which we have designed to optimally account for the anisotropic noise (in the 2D Fourier domain) often found in ground-based CMB experiments. Using this method, we combine multifrequency data from the Planck satellite and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) to construct the first wide-area (≈2100 sq. deg.), arcminute-resolution component-separated maps of the CMB temperature anisotropy and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (tSZ) effect sourced by the inverse-Compton scattering of CMB photons off hot, ionized gas. Our ILC pipeline allows for explicit deprojection of various contaminating signals, including a modified blackbody approximation of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) spectral energy distribution. The cleaned CMB maps will be a useful resource for CMB lensing reconstruction, kinematic SZ cross-correlations, and primordial non-Gaussianity studies. The tSZ maps will be used to study the pressure profiles of galaxies, groups, and clusters through cross-correlations with halo catalogs, with dust contamination controlled via CIB deprojection. The data products described in this paper are available on LAMBDA
The Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope Receiver
The Simons Observatory (SO) Large Aperture Telescope Receiver (LATR) will be
coupled to the Large Aperture Telescope located at an elevation of 5,200 m on
Cerro Toco in Chile. The resulting instrument will produce arcminute-resolution
millimeter-wave maps of half the sky with unprecedented precision. The LATR is
the largest cryogenic millimeter-wave camera built to date with a diameter of
2.4 m and a length of 2.6 m. It cools 1200 kg of material to 4 K and 200 kg to
100 mk, the operating temperature of the bolometric detectors with bands
centered around 27, 39, 93, 145, 225, and 280 GHz. Ultimately, the LATR will
accommodate 13 40 cm diameter optics tubes, each with three detector wafers and
a total of 62,000 detectors. The LATR design must simultaneously maintain the
optical alignment of the system, control stray light, provide cryogenic
isolation, limit thermal gradients, and minimize the time to cool the system
from room temperature to 100 mK. The interplay between these competing factors
poses unique challenges. We discuss the trade studies involved with the design,
the final optimization, the construction, and ultimate performance of the
system
The Simons Observatory: Modeling Optical Systematics in the Large Aperture Telescope
We present geometrical and physical optics simulation results for the Simons
Observatory Large Aperture Telescope. This work was developed as part of the
general design process for the telescope; allowing us to evaluate the impact of
various design choices on performance metrics and potential systematic effects.
The primary goal of the simulations was to evaluate the final design of the
reflectors and the cold optics which are now being built. We describe
non-sequential ray tracing used to inform the design of the cold optics,
including absorbers internal to each optics tube. We discuss ray tracing
simulations of the telescope structure that allow us to determine geometries
that minimize detector loading and mitigate spurious near-field effects that
have not been resolved by the internal baffling. We also describe physical
optics simulations, performed over a range of frequencies and field locations,
that produce estimates of monochromatic far field beam patterns which in turn
are used to gauge general optical performance. Finally, we describe simulations
that shed light on beam sidelobes from panel gap diffraction.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 Gravitational Lensing Map and Cosmological Parameters
We present cosmological constraints from a gravitational lensing mass map
covering 9400 sq. deg. reconstructed from CMB measurements made by the Atacama
Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 2017 to 2021. In combination with BAO
measurements (from SDSS and 6dF), we obtain the amplitude of matter
fluctuations at 1.8% precision,
and the Hubble
constant at
1.6% precision. A joint constraint with CMB lensing measured by the Planck
satellite yields even more precise values: ,
and . These measurements agree
well with CDM-model extrapolations from the CMB anisotropies measured
by Planck. To compare these constraints to those from the KiDS, DES, and HSC
galaxy surveys, we revisit those data sets with a uniform set of assumptions,
and find from all three surveys are lower than that from ACT+Planck
lensing by varying levels ranging from 1.7-2.1. These results motivate
further measurements and comparison, not just between the CMB anisotropies and
galaxy lensing, but also between CMB lensing probing on
mostly-linear scales and galaxy lensing at on smaller scales. We
combine our CMB lensing measurements with CMB anisotropies to constrain
extensions of CDM, limiting the sum of the neutrino masses to eV (95% c.l.), for example. Our results provide independent
confirmation that the universe is spatially flat, conforms with general
relativity, and is described remarkably well by the CDM model, while
paving a promising path for neutrino physics with gravitational lensing from
upcoming ground-based CMB surveys.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, prepared for submission to ApJ. Cosmological
likelihood data is here:
https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_prod_table.html ; likelihood
software is here: https://github.com/ACTCollaboration/act_dr6_lenslike . Also
see companion papers Qu et al and MacCrann et al. Mass maps will be released
when papers are publishe