| Notes: | Advisor: Paolo Privitera.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Chicago, Division of the Physical Sciences, Department of Physics, 2011.
Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-12, Section: B, page: 7411.
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| Summary: | The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contains a wealth of untapped information that will enable us to probe the structure and dynamics of the early universe. The Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET) was designed to measure these CMB polarization anisotropies at angular scales of 25 < ℓ < 1000, primarily targeting the predicted B-mode signal generated by primordial gravitational waves sourced by inflation. Although the B-mode signal has eluded detection thus far, discovery of such a signal would provide a 'smoking-gun' for inflationary theories.
Operating between October of 2008 and December of 2010 on the Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert in Chile, QUIET acquired over 10,000 hours of data in two observing seasons. QUIET employed two arrays of coherent receivers, with central frequencies at Q-Band (43 GHz) and W-Band (94 GHz). This thesis describes the design and implementation of QUIET, including the construction and characterization of the W-Band receiver, observations with both receivers, and reports initial results from the first season Q-Band observations.
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