111 research outputs found
Magnetic fields in molecular clouds: The BLASTPol and BLAST-TNG experiments
No full textThe Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) was a suborbital experiment designed to map magnetic fields in order to study their role in star formation processes. BLASTPol made detailed polarization maps of a number of molecular clouds during its successful flight from Antarctica in 2012. The data reduction and analysis efforts over the three years following the flight have produced a number of important scientific results. The next-generation BLAST instrument (BLAST-TNG) will build off the success of the previous experiment and continue its role as a unique instrument and a test bed for new technologies. With a 16-fold increase in mapping speed, BLAST-TNG will make larger and deeper maps. Major improvements include a 2.5 m carbon fiber mirror that is 40% wider than the BLASTPol mirror and more than 3000 polarization sensitive detectors. BLAST-TNG will observe in the same three bands as BLASTpol at 250, 350, and 500 microns. The telescope will serve as a pathfinder project for microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) technology, as applied to feedhorn coupled submillimeter detector arrays. The liquid helium cooled cryostat will have a 28-day hold time and will utilize a closed-cycle 3He refrigerator to cool the detector arrays to 270 mK. This will enable a detailed mapping of more targets with higher polarization resolution than any other submillimeter experiment to date. My thesis describes the 2012 instrument and results while also outlining the motivation for BLAST-TNG and the instrumental design and initial testing
The Simons Observatory : Design, Integration, and Testing of the Small Aperture Telescopes
No full textThe Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background survey experiment that includes small-aperture telescopes (SATs) observing from an altitude of 5200 m in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The SO SATs will cover six spectral bands between 27 and 280 GHz to search for primordial B-modes to a sensitivity of σ(r) = 0.002, with quantified systematic errors well below this value. Each SAT is a self-contained cryogenic telescope with a 35° field of view, 42 cm diameter optical aperture, 40 K half-wave plate, 1 K refractive optics, and <0.1 K focal plane that holds >12,000 transition edge sensor detectors. We describe the nominal design of the SATs and present details about the integration and testing for one operating at 93 and 145 GHz.</p
The Simons Observatory: A Minimum-Cost Matching Algorithm for Pairing Measured Resonances with Designed Detectors
No full textThe Simons Observatory (SO) is a ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment currently being deployed to Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The initial deployment of SO, consisting of three 0.46m-diameter small-aperture telescopes and one 6m-primary large-aperture telescope, will field over 60,000 transition-edge sensors that will observe at frequencies between 30 GHz and 280 GHz. SO will read out its detectors using Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) microwave-frequency multiplexing mux, a form of frequency division multiplexing where an RF-SQUID couples each TES bolometer to a superconducting resonator tuned to a unique frequency. Resonator frequencies are spaced roughly every 2 MHz between 4 and 6 GHz, allowing for multiplexing factors on the order of 1000. One challenge of mux is matching each tracked resonator with its corresponding physical detector. Variations in resonator fabrication, and frequency shifts between cooldowns caused by trapped flux can cause the measured resonance frequencies to deviate significantly from their designed values. In this study, we introduce a method for pairing measured and designed resonators by constructing a bipartite graph based on the two resonator sets, and assigning edge weights based on measured resonator and detector properties such as resonance frequency, detector pointing, and assigned bias lines. Finding the minimum-cost matching for a given set of edge weights is a well-studied problem that can be solved very quickly, and this matching tells us the best assignment of measured resonators to designed detectors for our input parameters. We will present results based on the first on-sky measurements from SAT1, the first SO MF small-aperture telescope
BALLOON-BORNE SUBMILLIMETER POLARIMETRY OF THE VELA C MOLECULAR CLOUD: SYSTEMATIC DEPENDENCE OF POLARIZATION FRACTION ON COLUMN DENSITY AND LOCAL POLARIZATION-ANGLE DISPERSION
No full textWe present results for Vela C obtained during the 2012 flight of the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry. We mapped polarized intensity across almost the entire extent of this giant molecular cloud, in bands centered at 250, 350, and 500 μm. In this initial paper, we show our 500 μm data smoothed to a resolution of 2 5 (approximately 0.5 pc). We show that the mean level of the fractional polarization p and most of
its spatial variations can be accounted for using an empirical three-parameter power-law fit, p
µ N-0.45 S-0.60,
where N is the hydrogen column density and S is the polarization-angle dispersion on 0.5 pc scales. The decrease of p with increasing S is expected because changes in the magnetic field direction within the cloud volume sampled by each measurement will lead to cancellation of polarization signals. The decrease of p with increasing N might be caused by the same effect, if magnetic field disorder increases for high column density sightlines. Alternatively, the intrinsic polarization efficiency of the dust grain population might be lower for material along higher density sightlines. We find no significant correlation between N and S. Comparison of observed submillimeter polarization maps with synthetic polarization maps derived from numerical simulations provides a promising method for testing star formation theories. Realistic simulations should allow for the possibility of variable intrinsic polarization efficiency. The measured levels of correlation among p, N, and S provide points of comparison between observations and simulations
Comparing submillimeter polarized emission with near-infrared polarization of background stars for the Vela C molecular cloud
No full textWe present a large-scale combination of near-infrared (near-IR) interstellar polarization data from background starlight with polarized emission data at submillimeter wavelengths for the Vela C molecular cloud. The near-IR data consist of more than 6700 detections probing a range of visual extinctions between 2 and in and around the cloud. The submillimeter data were collected in Antarctica by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry. This is the first direct combination of near-IR and submillimeter polarization data for a molecular cloud aimed at measuring the "polarization efficiency ratio" (), a quantity that is expected to depend only on grain-intrinsic physical properties. It is defined as , where p 500 and p I are polarization fractions at and the I band, respectively, and is the optical depth. To ensure that the same column density of material is producing both polarization from emission and from extinction, we conducted a careful selection of near-background stars using 2MASS, Herschel, and Planck data. This selection excludes objects contaminated by the Galactic diffuse background material as well as objects located in the foreground. Accounting for statistical and systematic uncertainties, we estimate an average value of 2.4 ± 0.8, which can be used to test the predictions of dust grain models designed for molecular clouds when such predictions become available. The ratio appears to be relatively flat as a function of the cloud depth for the range of visual extinctions probed
SUBMILLIMETER POLARIZATION SPECTRUM IN THE VELA C MOLECULAR CLOUD
No full textPolarization maps of the Vela C molecular cloud were obtained at 250, 350, and 500 μm during the 2012 flight of the balloon-borne telescope BLASTPol. These measurements are used in conjunction with 850 μm data from Planck to study the submillimeter spectrum of the polarization fraction for this cloud. The spectrum is relatively flat and does not exhibit a pronounced minimum at λ ∼ 350 μm as suggested by previous measurements of other molecular clouds. The shape of the spectrum does not depend strongly on the radiative environment of the dust, as quantified by the column density or the dust temperature obtained from Herschel data. The polarization ratios observed in Vela C are consistent with a model of a porous clumpy molecular cloud being uniformly heated by the
interstellar radiation field
First Observation of the Submillimeter Polarization Spectrum in a Translucent Molecular Cloud
No full textPolarized emission from aligned dust is a crucial tool for studies of magnetism in the ISM, but a troublesome contaminant for studies of cosmic microwave background polarization. In each case, an understanding of the significance of the polarization signal requires well-calibrated physical models of dust grains. Despite decades of progress in theory and observation, polarized dust models remain largely underconstrained. During its 2012 flight, the balloon-borne telescope BLASTPol obtained simultaneous broadband polarimetric maps of a translucent molecular cloud at 250, 350, and 500 μm. Combining these data with polarimetry from the Planck 850 μm band, we have produced a submillimeter polarization spectrum, the first for a cloud of this type. We find the polarization degree to be largely constant across the four bands. This result introduces a new observable with the potential to place strong empirical constraints on ISM dust polarization models in a previously inaccessible density regime. Compared to models by Draine & Fraisse, our result disfavors two of their models for which all polarization arises due only to aligned silicate grains. By creating simple models for polarized emission in a translucent cloud, we verify that extinction within the cloud should have only a small effect on the polarization spectrum shape, compared to the diffuse ISM. Thus, we expect the measured polarization spectrum to be a valid check on diffuse ISM dust models. The general flatness of the observed polarization spectrum suggests a challenge to models where temperature and alignment degree are strongly correlated across major dust components
The Simons Observatory: Alarms and Detector Quality Monitoring
No full textThe Simons Observatory (SO) is a group of modern telescopes dedicated to observing the polarized cosmic microwave background (CMB), transients, and more. The Observatory consists of four telescopes and instruments, with over 60,000 superconducting detectors in total, located at ~5,200 m altitude in the Atacama Desert of Chile. During observations, it is important to ensure the detectors, telescope platforms, calibration and receiver hardware, and site hardware are within operational bounds. To facilitate rapid response when problems arise with any part of the system, it is essential that alerts are generated and distributed to appropriate personnel if components exceed these bounds. Similarly, alerts are generated if the quality of the data has become degraded. In this paper, we describe the SO alarm system we developed within the larger Observatory Control System (OCS) framework, including the data sources, alert architecture, and implementation. We also present results from deploying the alarm system during the commissioning of the SO telescopes and receivers.14 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. To be presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 202
Design and characterization of a ground-based absolute polarization calibrator for use with polarization sensitive CMB experiments
No full textPROTOCALC: an artificial calibrator source for CMB telescopes
No full textCosmic Microwave Background experiments need to measure polarization
properties of the incoming radiation very accurately to achieve their
scientific goals. As a result of that, it is necessary to properly characterize
these instruments. However, there are not natural sources that can be used for
this purpose. For this reason, we developed the PROTOtype CALibrator for
Cosmology, PROTOCALC, which is a calibrator source designed for the 90GHz band
of these telescopes. This source is purely polarized and the direction of the
polarization vector is known with an accuracy better than 0.1deg. This source
flew for the first time in May 2022 showing promising resultComment: Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 202
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