Feeney, SM;
Gudmundsson, JE;
Peiris, HV;
Verde, L;
Errard, J;
(2017)
Cosmic microwave background science at commercial airline altitudes.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
, 469
(1)
L6-L10.
10.1093/mnrasl/slx040.
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Abstract
Obtaining high-sensitivity measurements of degree-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization is the most direct path to detecting primordial gravitational waves. Robustly recovering any primordial signal from the dominant foreground emission will require high-fidelity observations at multiple frequencies, with excellent control of systematics. We explore the potential for a new platform for CMB observations, the Airlander 10 hybrid air vehicle, to perform this task. We show that the Airlander 10 platform, operating at commercial airline altitudes, is well suited to mapping frequencies above 220 GHz, which are critical for cleaning CMB maps of dust emission. Optimizing the distribution of detectors across frequencies, we forecast the ability of Airlander 10 to clean foregrounds of varying complexity as a function of altitude, demonstrating its complementarity with both existing (Planck) and ongoing (C-BASS) foreground observations. This novel platform could play a key role in defining our ultimate view of the polarized microwave sky.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Cosmic microwave background science at commercial airline altitudes |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/mnrasl/slx040 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slx040 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Methods: statistical, cosmic background radiation, early Universe |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1567672 |
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