The EBEX Balloon Borne Experiment - Detectors and Readout

Abstract

EBEX was a long-duration balloon-borne experiment to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The experiment had three frequency bands centered at 150, 250, and 410 GHz and was the first to use a kilo-pixel array of transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers aboard a balloon platform; shortly after reaching float we operated 504, 342, and 109 TESs at each of the bands, respectively. We describe the design and characterization of the array and the readout system. We give the distributions of measured thermal conductances, normal resistances, and transition temperatures. With the exception of the thermal conductance at 150 GHz. We measured median low-loop-gain time constants ${\tau }_0=$ 88, 46, and 57 ms and compare them to predictions. Two measurements of bolometer absorption efficiency show high ($\sim$0.9) efficiency at 150 GHz and medium ($\sim$0.35, and $\sim$0.25) at the two higher bands, respectively. We measure a median total optical load of 3.6, 5.3 and 5.0 pW absorbed at the three bands, respectively. EBEX pioneered the use of the digital version of the frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) system which multiplexed the bias and readout of 16 bolometers onto two wires. We present accounting of the measured noise equivalent power. The median per-detector noise equivalent temperatures referred to a black body with a temperature of 2.725 K are 400, 920, and 14500 $\mu$K$\sqrt{s}$ for the three bands, respectively. We compare these values to our pre-flight predictions and to a previous balloon payload, discuss the sources of excess noise, and the path for a future payload to make full use of the balloon environment.

arXiv commentAccepted by The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (APJS). 49 pages, 28 figures, 11 tables

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• The EBEX Balloon Borne Experiment - Optics, Receiver, and Polarimetry
• Status of the SIMP Project: Toward the Single Microwave Photon Detection
• Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors for millimeter-wave detection
• QUBIC VI: cryogenic half wave plate rotator, design and performances
• Superconducting On-chip Fourier Transform Spectrometer
• Intensity-Coupled-Polarization in Instruments with a Continuously Rotating Half-Wave Plate
• Demonstration of ultra-low noise equivalent power using a longitudinal proximity effect transition-edge sensor
• Quantum measurement systems and applications to particle physics and cosmology