Far-Sidelobe Antenna Pattern Measurement of LiteBIRD Low Frequency Telescope in 1/4 Scale

Abstract

Polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) has crucial information on the inflationary universe. To detect these signals, it is necessary to suppress far sidelobes of a telescope, which contaminate the CMB signals with strong foreground radiation, such as the Galactic plane. LiteBIRD is the only funded CMB observation satellite for the 2020s, and the low frequency telescope (LFT; 34-161 GHz) is one of its telescopes. We measured near-field antenna patterns of the LFT using its 1/4-scaled model and examined far sidelobes up to 60° from the peaks. To cover the 20° field of view of the LFT, we investigated the antenna patterns at the edges of the focal plane as well as at the center. The measurement frequencies were 140-220 GHz, which correspond to the lowest bands (35-55 GHz) of the full-scale LFT. The measurements were consistent with the simulated far-sidelobe patterns at least -50 dB level, and showed that far sidelobes for two orthogonal polarization directions are consistent with each other down to -40 dB level. We also measured the cross-polarization patterns, and their peak level was less than -20 dB.