B-Machine Polarimeter: A Telescope to Measure the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

Abstract

The B-Machine Telescope is the culmination of several years of development, construction, characterization and observation. The telescope is a departure from standard polarization chopping of correlation receivers to a half wave plate technique. Typical polarimeters use a correlation receiver to chop the polarization signal to overcome the $1/f$ noise inherent in HEMT amplifiers. B-Machine uses a room temperature half wave plate technology to chop between polarization states and measure the polarization signature of the CMB. The telescope has a demodulated $1/f$ knee of 5 mHz and an average sensitivity of 1.6 $\mathrm{mK}\sqrt{\mathrm{s}}$. This document examines the construction, characterization, observation of astronomical sources, and data set analysis of B-Machine. Preliminary power spectra and sky maps with large sky coverage for the first year data set are included.

arXiv commentThesis for Brian Dean Williams from University of California at Santa Barbara