The Simons Observatory: Design, integration, and testing of the small aperture telescopes

2024/05/09 by Nicholas Galitzki, Galitzki, Nicholas, Tran Tsan +153 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Superconducting and THz Device Technology

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.05550

Abstract

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment that includes small-aperture telescopes (SATs) observing from an altitude of 5,200 m in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The SO SATs will cover six spectral bands between 27 and 280 GHz to search for primordial B-modes to a sensitivity of σ(r)=0.002, with quantified systematic errors well below this value. Each SAT is a self-contained cryogenic telescope with a 35^∘ field of view, 42 cm diameter optical aperture, 40 K half-wave plate, 1 K refractive optics, and <0.1 K focal plane that holds >12,000 TES detectors. We describe the nominal design of the SATs and present details about the integration and testing for one operating at 93 and 145 GHz.

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