10833374
Optical design of the atacama cosmology telescope and the millimeter bolometric array camera.
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope is a 6 m telescope designed to map the cosmic microwave background simultaneously at 145, 215, and 280 GHz with arcminute resolution. Each frequency will have a 32 by 32 element focal plane array of transition edge sensor bolometers. The telescope and the cold reimaging optics are optimized for millimeter-wave observations with these sensitive detectors. The design of each is described.
27705474
ACTPol: a polarization-sensitive receiver for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope
The six-meter Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile was built to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at arcminute angular scales. We are building a new polarization sensitive receiver for ACT (ACTPol). ACTPol will characterize the gravitational lensing of the CMB and aims to constrain the sum of the neutrino masses with ~ 0.05 eV precision, the running of the spectral index of inflation-induced fluctuations, and the primordial helium abundance to better than 1 %. Our observing fields will overlap with the SDSS BOSS survey at optical wavelengths, enabling a variety of cross-correlation science, including studies of the growth of cosmic structure from Sunyaev-Zel'dovich observations of clusters of galaxies as well as independent constraints on the sum of the neutrino masses. We describe the science objectives and the initial receiver design.
2907589
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) 2005: Calibration and Targeted Sources
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) operated successfully during a 100 hr flight from northern Sweden in 2005 June (BLAST05). As part of the calibration and pointing procedures, several compact sources were mapped, including solar system, Galactic, and extragalactic targets, specifically Pallas, CRL 2688, LDN 1014, IRAS 20126+4104, IRAS 21078+5211, IRAS 21307+5049, IRAS 22134+5834, IRAS 23011+6126, K3-50, W75N, and Mrk 231. One additional source, Arp 220, was observed and used as our primary calibrator. Details of the overall BLAST05 calibration procedure are discussed here. The BLAST observations of each compact source are described, flux densities and spectral energy distributions are reported, and these are compared with previous measurements at other wavelengths. The 250, 350, and 500 μm BLAST data can provide useful constraints to the amplitude and slope of the submillimeter continuum, which in turn may be useful for the improved calibration of other submillimeter instruments.
19329844
Overview of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope: receiver, instrumentation, and telescope systems
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope was designed to measure small-scale anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and detect galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. The instrument is located on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 5190 m. A 6 m off-axis Gregorian telescope feeds a new type of cryogenic receiver, the Millimeter Bolometer Array Camera. The receiver features three 1000-element arrays of transition-edge sensor bolometers for observations at 148 GHz, 218 GHz, and 277 GHz. Each detector array is fed by free space millimeter-wave optics. Each frequency band has a field of view of approximately 22' × 26'. The telescope was commissioned in 2007 and has completed its third year of operations. We discuss the major components of the telescope, camera, and related systems, and summarize the instrument performance.
119263001
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope: BLAST
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a suborbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between three arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral windows at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The optical design is based on a 2 m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30'' at 250 μm. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of ~30''; postflight pointing reconstruction to 5'' rms is achieved. The onboard telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a preselected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long-duration balloon flights: a 100 hr flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern Canada in 2005 June; and a 250 hr, circumpolar flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in 2006 December.
120900516
Calibrating the Heavy Water Cherenkov Detector in Phase III of the SNO Experiment
18217236
The calibration of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory using uniformly distributed radioactive sources
The production and analysis of distributed sources of 24Na and 222Rn in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) are described. These unique sources provided accurate calibrations of the response to neutrons, produced through photodisintegration of the deuterons in the heavy water target, and to low energy betas and gammas. The application of these sources in determining the neutron detection efficiency and response of the 3He proportional counter array, and the characteristics of background Cherenkov light from trace amounts of natural radioactivity is described.
16245625
SOLAR NEUTRINO RESULTS FROM THE SUDBURY NEUTRINO OBSERVATORY
We describe here the measurement of the flux of neutrinos created by the decay of solar 8B by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). The neutrinos were detected via the charged current (CC) reaction on deuterium and by the elastic scattering (ES) of electrons. The CC reaction is sensitive exclusively to νe's, while the ES reaction also has a small sensitivity to νμ's and ντ's. The flux of νe's from 8B decay measured by the CC reaction rate is . Assuming no flavor transformation, the flux inferred from the ES reaction rate is . Comparison of ϕCC(νe) to the Super-Kamiokande Collaboration's precision value of ϕES(νx) yields a 3.3σ difference, assuming the systematic uncertainties are normally distributed, providing evidence that there is non-electron flavor active neutrino component in the solar flux. The total flux of active 8B neutrinos is thus determined to be 5.44 ± 0.99 × 106 cm- 2s- 1, in close agreement with the predictions of solar models.
119647577
Reply to comment on ‘Using cold atoms to measure neutrino mass’
We discuss questions raised concerning the proposal of kinematically reconstructing the neutrino mass using an ultracold source of tritium atoms (Otten E W 2011 New J. Phys. 13 078001). We provide further details about our two-dimensional fit and emphasize the importance of simultaneously utilizing information from both the neutrino mass squared peak and the β-spectrum. We also explain how the simulation evolved over various drafts of the paper, and we comment on future directions for additional simulation work, including more detailed simulations of spectrometers and electromagnetic field variations.
119286890
Using cold atoms to measure neutrino mass
We propose a -decay experiment based on a sample of ultracold atomic tritium. These initial conditions enable detection of the helium ion in coincidence with the . We construct a two-dimensional fit incorporating both the shape of the -spectrum and the direct reconstruction of the neutrino mass peak. We present simulation results of the feasible limits on the neutrino mass achievable in this new type of tritium -decay experiment.