Abstract

The Simons Observatory (SO) experiment is a cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment located in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The SO’s small aperture telescopes (SATs) consist of three telescopes designed for precise CMB polarimetry at large angular scales. Each SAT uses a cryogenic rotating half-wave plate (HWP) as a polarization modulator to mitigate atmospheric 1/f noise and other systematics. To realize efficient polarization modulation over the observation bands, we fabricated an achromatic HWP (AHWP) consisting of three sapphire plates with anti-reflection coatings. The AHWP is designed to have broadband modulation efficiency and transmittance. This paper reports on the design and the preliminary characterization of the AHWPs for SATs.

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call