The QUBIC instrument for CMB polarization measurements

L. Mele ... [et al.].

Serie: Trabajos publicados del IAR ; no. 1551

Resumen: Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization mayreveal the presence of a background of gravitational waves producedduring cosmic inflation, providing thus a test of inflationary models.The Q&U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) is anexperiment designed to measure the CMB polarization. It is based on thenovel concept of bolometric interferometry, which combines thesensitivity of bolometric detectors with the properties of beamsynthesis and control of calibration offered by interferometers. Tomodulate and extract the input polarized signal of the CMB, QUBICexploits Stokes polarimetry based on a rotating half-wave plate (HWP).In this work, we illustrate the design of the QUBIC instrument, focusingon the polarization modulation system, and we present preliminaryresults of beam calibrations and the performance of the HWP rotator at300 K.