The Simons Observatory: Modeling Optical Systematics in the Large Aperture Telescope

Abstract

We present geometrical and physical optics simulation results for the Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope. This work was developed as part of the general design process for the telescope; allowing us to evaluate the impact of various design choices on performance metrics and potential systematic effects. The primary goal of the simulations was to evaluate the final design of the reflectors and the cold optics which are now being built. We describe non-sequential ray tracing used to inform the design of the cold optics, including absorbers internal to each optics tube. We discuss ray tracing simulations of the telescope structure that allow us to determine geometries that minimize detector loading and mitigate spurious near-field effects that have not been resolved by the internal baffling. We also describe physical optics simulations, performed over a range of frequencies and field locations, that produce estimates of monochromatic far field beam patterns which in turn are used to gauge general optical performance. Finally, we describe simulations that shed light on beam sidelobes from panel gap diffraction.

arXiv comment15 pages, 13 figures

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Cited by in corpus (18)

• The Simons Observatory microwave SQUID multiplexing detector module design
• The Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope Receiver
• The Simons Observatory: Galactic Science Goals and Forecasts
• The conceptual design of the 50-meter Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST)
• Instrumental systematics biases in CMB lensing reconstruction: a simulation-based assessment
• Optical modeling of systematic uncertainties in detector polarization angles for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope
• The Simons Observatory: Characterizing the Large Aperture Telescope Receiver with Radio Holography
• Freeform three-mirror anastigmatic large-aperture telescope and receiver optics for CMB-S4
• The Integration and Testing Program for the Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope Optics Tubes
• Fabrication of a Monolithic 5-Meter Aluminum Reflector for Millimeter-Wavelength Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• The Simons Observatory: impact of bandpass, polarization angle and calibration uncertainties on small-scale power spectrum analysis
• The Simons Observatory: Alarms and Detector Quality Monitoring
• Sidelobe Modeling and Mitigation for a Three Mirror Anastigmat Cosmic Microwave Background Telescope
• A physical optics characterization of the beam shape and sidelobe levels for the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST)
• CCAT: A status update on the EoR-Spec instrument module for Prime-Cam
• The Simons Observatory: A Minimum-Cost Matching Algorithm for Pairing Measured Resonances with Designed Detectors
• CCAT-prime: Characterization of the First 280 GHz MKID Array for Prime-Cam
• The Simons Observatory: HoloSim-ML: machine learning applied to the efficient analysis of radio holography measurements of complex optical systems