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High Energy-Astrophysics | First Result from QUIET

Monday, March 7, 2011
12:00 AM
335 West Hall

Speaker: Akito Kusaka (University of Chicago)

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization is the ultimate probe of primordial gravity waves in the early universe, via the B-mode (or parity odd) signal on degree angular scales. A detection of such a signal would be strong evidence of the inflation scenario and represent indirect observation of a fundamentally new phenomenon near the grand unification energy scale. With its unique HEMT radiometer technology, QUIET is among the most competitive experiments aiming to detect such a signature in the CMB. QUIET has just completed its observation from October 2008 through December 2010, first with 43GHz receiver and then with 95GHz one, collecting over 10000 hours of data in total. In this talk, I will review the QUIET experiment and report the first result from QUIET using 3458 hours of data taken with the 43GHz receiver. The result is supported by analysis techniques such as cross correlation of the maps with different pointings and the blind analysis. Thoroughly estimated systematic errors, being the least of those reported to date, demonstrate systematic cleanness of QUIET and represent a good prospect for a future project.