BoloCalc: a sensitivity calculator for the design of Simons Observatory

Abstract

The Simons Observatory (SO) is an upcoming experiment that will study temperature and polarization fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from the Atacama Desert in Chile. SO will field both a large aperture telescope (LAT) and an array of small aperture telescopes (SATs) that will observe in six bands with center frequencies spanning from 27 to 270~GHz. Key considerations during the SO design phase are vast, including the number of cameras per telescope, focal plane magnification and pixel density, in-band optical power and camera throughput, detector parameter tolerances, and scan strategy optimization. To inform the SO design in a rapid, organized, and traceable manner, we have created a Python-based sensitivity calculator with several state-of-the-art features, including detector-to-detector optical white-noise correlations, a handling of simulated and measured bandpasses, and propagation of low-level parameter uncertainties to uncertainty in on-sky noise performance. We discuss the mathematics of the sensitivity calculation, the calculator's object-oriented structure and key features, how it has informed the design of SO, and how it can enhance instrument design in the broader CMB community, particularly for CMB-S4.

arXiv commentSubmitted to the Proceedings of SPIE: Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• The Simons Observatory: Science goals and forecasts
• The Simons Observatory microwave SQUID multiplexing detector module design
• The Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope Receiver
• The POLARBEAR-2 and Simons Array Focal Plane Fabrication Status
• The Simons Observatory: Modeling Optical Systematics in the Large Aperture Telescope
• The 21 cm-kSZ-kSZ Bispectrum during the Epoch of Reionization
• The Simons Observatory: Metamaterial Microwave Absorber (MMA) and its Cryogenic Applications
• A cryogenic continuously rotating half-wave plate for the POLARBEAR-2b cosmic microwave background receiver
• Instrumental systematics biases in CMB lensing reconstruction: a simulation-based assessment
• Studies of Systematic Uncertainties for Simons Observatory: Detector Array Effects
• Studies of Systematic Uncertainties for Simons Observatory: Optical Effects and Sensitivity Considerations
• Photon noise correlations in millimeter-wave telescopes
• The Simons Observatory: Dark Characterization of the Large Aperture Telescope
• SPECTER: An Instrument Concept for CMB Spectral Distortion Measurements with Enhanced Sensitivity