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Constraining the inflationary universe from the South Pole Fatigoni, Sofia
Abstract
The standard model of cosmology (ΛCDM ) is able to statistically describe the observable Universe with a small set of parameters that have been mea- sured to a percent level precision through observations of the Cosmic Mi- crowave Background (CMB) [Aghanim et al. 2020]. While this model shows a remarkable agreement with the data, it still can’t explain all the features we observe in the CMB. One of the biggest mysteries resides on the fact that CMB radiation sky is extremely uniform in temperature, despite that it was generated when the Universe was so young that just small patches of sky could be in causal contact. As an add on to the Standard Cosmological Model the theory of inflation [Guth 1981] was introduced, to solve this set of puzzles. One prediction from Inflation is the presence of a background of gravitational waves, in the primordial Universe, that would have produced a unique parity-odd pattern in the polarization of the CMB, also known as B-Modes. Until now no CMB experiment was able to find B-Modes. As B-modes are very low in signal (O(Bmodes) ∼ 10⁻⁷O(∆T )), finding them is one of the biggest challenges of Cosmology today and it requires an ex- tremely sensitive and low noise instrument, high level of systematics control and an accurate model for foregrounds subtraction. In this thesis I will go through the design of BICEP Array (BA), the latest multi frequency instru- ment part of the BICEP/Keck (BK) experiment, which is optimized for the search of B-Modes. I will show the instrument tuning and characterization process and explain the observation strategy. I will also explain the latest results from the BK data, show how these data allow a huge step forward in our understanding of inflation and what are the prospects in the search for B-Modes with BICEP Array. I will then show how, using a Water Vapour Radiometer located next to the telescope, I developed a new method for atmospheric noise subtraction that could allow us to recover a fraction of the low-frequency B-Modes power spectrum, which is otherwise lost during data processing.
Item Metadata
Title |
Constraining the inflationary universe from the South Pole
|
Creator | |
Supervisor | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
|
Date Issued |
2023
|
Description |
The standard model of cosmology (ΛCDM ) is able to statistically describe
the observable Universe with a small set of parameters that have been mea-
sured to a percent level precision through observations of the Cosmic Mi-
crowave Background (CMB) [Aghanim et al. 2020]. While this model shows
a remarkable agreement with the data, it still can’t explain all the features
we observe in the CMB. One of the biggest mysteries resides on the fact
that CMB radiation sky is extremely uniform in temperature, despite that
it was generated when the Universe was so young that just small patches of
sky could be in causal contact. As an add on to the Standard Cosmological
Model the theory of inflation [Guth 1981] was introduced, to solve this set
of puzzles. One prediction from Inflation is the presence of a background of
gravitational waves, in the primordial Universe, that would have produced
a unique parity-odd pattern in the polarization of the CMB, also known as
B-Modes. Until now no CMB experiment was able to find B-Modes. As
B-modes are very low in signal (O(Bmodes) ∼ 10⁻⁷O(∆T )), finding them
is one of the biggest challenges of Cosmology today and it requires an ex-
tremely sensitive and low noise instrument, high level of systematics control
and an accurate model for foregrounds subtraction. In this thesis I will go
through the design of BICEP Array (BA), the latest multi frequency instru-
ment part of the BICEP/Keck (BK) experiment, which is optimized for the
search of B-Modes. I will show the instrument tuning and characterization
process and explain the observation strategy. I will also explain the latest
results from the BK data, show how these data allow a huge step forward in
our understanding of inflation and what are the prospects in the search for
B-Modes with BICEP Array. I will then show how, using a Water Vapour
Radiometer located next to the telescope, I developed a new method for
atmospheric noise subtraction that could allow us to recover a fraction of
the low-frequency B-Modes power spectrum, which is otherwise lost during
data processing.
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
|
Date Available |
2023-03-09
|
Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
|
DOI |
10.14288/1.0427409
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2023-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
|
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Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International