The Cosmic Background Imager

Abstract

Design and performance details are given for the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI), an interferometer array that is measuring the power spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) for multipoles in the range 400 < l < 3500. The CBI is located at an altitude of 5000 m in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. It is a planar synthesis array with 13 0.9-m diameter antennas on a 6-m diameter tracking platform. Each antenna has a cooled, low-noise receiver operating in the 26-36 GHz band. Signals are cross-correlated in an analog filterbank correlator with ten 1 GHz bands. This allows spectral index measurements which can be used to distinguish CMBR signals from diffuse galactic foregrounds. A 1.2 kHz 180-deg phase switching scheme is used to reject cross-talk and low-frequency pick-up in the signal processing system. The CBI has a 3-axis mount which allows the tracking platform to be rotated about the optical axis, providing improved (u,v) coverage and a powerful discriminant against false signals generated in the receiving electronics. Rotating the tracking platform also permits polarization measurements when some of the antennas are configured for the orthogonal polarization.

14 pages. Accepted for publication in PASP. See also http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/CBI/

References in corpus (2)

• First Intrinsic Anisotropy Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager
• A Preliminary Detection of Arcminute Scale Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy with the BIMA Array

Cited by in corpus (62)

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• Polarization Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager
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• Mass and Hot Baryons in Massive Galaxy Clusters from Subaru Weak Lensing and AMiBA SZE Observations
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• The CMB power spectrum out to l=1400 measured by the VSA
• The State-of-Play of Anomalous Microwave Emission (AME) Research
• Morphological analysis of the cm-wave continuum in the dark cloud LDN1622
• First Season QUIET Observations: Measurements of CMB Polarization Power Spectra at 43 GHz in the Multipole Range 25 <= ell <= 475
• Second Season QUIET Observations: Measurements of the CMB Polarization Power Spectrum at 95 GHz
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• Modulation of CMB polarization with a warm rapidly-rotating half-wave plate on the Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) instrument
• Centimeter-wave continuum radiation from the rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud
• A Fast Gridded Method for the Estimation of the Power Spectrum of the CMB from Interferometer Data with Application to the Cosmic Background Imager
• First Detection of Cosmic Structure in the 21-cm Intensity Field
• Anomalous Microwave Emission from the HII region RCW175
• The QUIET Instrument
• Joint Analysis of Cluster Observations: I. Mass Profile of Abell 478 from Combined X-ray, Sunyaev-Z'eldovich, and Weak Lensing Data
• Systematic effects from an ambient-temperature, continuously-rotating half-wave plate
• The AMiBA Hexapod Telescope Mount
• Parque Astronómico de Atacama: An ideal site for millimeter, submillimeter, and mid-infrared astronomy
• The Yuan-Tseh Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy
• Millimeter-wave bolometer array receiver for the Atacama pathfinder experiment Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (APEX-SZ) instrument
• Precipitable Water Vapor, Temperature, and Wind Statistics At Sites Suitable for mm and Submm Wavelength Astronomy in Northern Chile
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• Anomalous radio emission from dust in the Helix
• An Unbiased Measurement of Ho through Cosmic Background Imager Observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in Nearby Galaxy Clusters
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• A centimetre-wave excess over free-free emission in planetary nebulae
• AMiBA: Broadband Heterodyne CMB Interferometry
• Twenty years of PWV measurements in the Chajnantor Area
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• IR-correlated 31 GHz radio emission from Orion East
• COMAP Early Science: II. Pathfinder Instrument
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• AMiBA Wideband Analog Correlator
• Scientific verification of Faraday Rotation Modulators: Detection of diffuse polarized Galactic emission
• Vela X at 31 GHz
• AMiBA: System Performance
• Limits on the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation at Multipoles up to l~2000
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• Herschel imaging of the dust in the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293)
• Resolved observations at 31 GHz of spinning dust emissivity variations in $\rho$ Oph
• Analysis of the distribution of precipitable water vapor in the Chajnantor area
• Bayesian Image Reconstruction Based on Voronoi Diagrams
• Multi-frequency measurements of the NVSS foreground sources in the Cosmic Background Imager fields. I. Data release
• CMB observations from the CBI and VSA: A comparison of coincident maps and parameter estimation methods
• An overview of the planned CCAT software system
• The Cosmic Background Imager 2
• A practical theorem on using interferometry to measure the global 21-cm signal
• Status of CMB Polarization Measurements from DASI and Other Experiments
• Observations of Galactic star-forming regions with the Cosmic Background Imager at 31 GHz
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• Testing the CMB Data for Systematic Effects
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• Implementation of an Optimised Cassegrain System for Radio Telescopes