Measurement of the CMB Polarization at 95 GHz from QUIET
  (Abridged) Despite the great success of precision cosmology, cosmologists
cannot fully explain the initial conditions of the Universe. Inflation, an
exponential expansion in the first 10^-36s, is a promising potential
explanation. A generic prediction of inflation is odd-parity (B-mode)
polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The Q/U Imaging
ExperimenT (QUIET) aimed to limit or detect this polarization.
  We built a coherent pseudo-correlation microwave polarimeter. An array of
mass-produced modules populated the focal plane of a 1.4m telescope. Each
module had a sensitivity to polarization of 756muK sqrt{s} with a bandwidth of
10.7+/-1.1 GHz centered at 94.5+/-0.8 GHz; the combined sensitivity was
87+/-7muK sqrt{s}. We incorporated deck rotation, an absorbing ground screen, a
new time-stream double-demodulation technique, and optimized optics into the
design to reduce instrumental polarization. We observed with this instrument at
the Atacama Plateau in Chile between August 2009 and December 2010. We
collected 5336.9 hours of CMB observation and 1090 hours of astronomical
calibration.
  This thesis describes the analysis and results of these data. We
characterized the instrument using the astronomical calibration data as well as
purpose-built artificial sources. We developed noise modeling, filtering, and
data selection following a blind-analysis strategy. Central to this strategy
was a suite of 32 null tests, each motivated by a possible instrumental problem
or systematic effect. We also evaluated the systematic errors in the blind
stage of the analysis before the result was known. We then calculated the CMB
power spectra using a pseudo-Cl cross-correlation technique that suppressed
contamination and made the result insensitive to noise bias.
