Millimeter/Submillimeter-wave Cosmology: mm-wave Test Cryostat Design, Deployment and SCUBA-2/SMA Observations of the H1549 Overdense Galaxy Protocluster
Institution: | Dalhousie University |
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Department: | Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science |
Degree: | MS |
Year: | 2014 |
Keywords: | submm, CMB, polarization |
Record ID: | 2025623 |
Full text PDF: | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/54080 |
This thesis is divided into four main sections. I begin by providing the reader with some context for the significance of this work by introducing the concept of millimeter/submillimeter cosmology. This is followed by an introduction to the instrumentation used at these wavelengths and the design of a laboratory based system I developed to test sensitive broadband detectors operating at 0.25K. Next I will discuss a promising experiment in this field that is currently observing the cosmic microwave background in the Chilean Andes in search of a unique polarization pattern predicted by inflationary theories. In this section I will outline my contributions to the project and explain how it initiated the development of the system discussed in the previous section. I will conclude with a high-level data analysis project I worked on to gain some experience dealing with data sets from millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths.