MIMIC Receiver Development for Large-Format Astronomy Arrays
The development of large-format heterodyne receiver arrays will enable a number of state-of-the-art astrophysical measurements. In particular, we are developing instruments that will conduct spectroscopic mapping of star-forming galactic regions, detection of the cosmic microwave background polarization, and measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect.
Spectroscopy
We are targeting spectral lines from 85-100 GHz. These frequencies are known to be good tracers of dense...
Read More »Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
NuSTAR is a satellite-based observatory sensitive in the hard X-ray band covering the energy range of 5-80 keV. It has been developed and built under the auspices of NASA's Explorer program, and is led by Caltech (the PI is Prof. Fiona Harrison), with involvement of many other institutions including NASA's JPL, Columbia University, UC Berkeley, NASA-Goddard, Stanford, McGill, Danish Space Research Institute, MIT, and Yale. It features several new technologies, including focusing optics...
Read More »Planck
Planck observes the sky in the frequency range from 30 GHz to 857 GHz. The central horizontal band is dust emission from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, with gas and dust emission extending to high galactic latitudes. Away from the galactic plane the red and yellow structure shows the small fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation that was emitted when the universe was 380...
Read More »POLAR-1 and Polar Array
When completed, POLAR-1 will be the most sensitive cosmic microwave background polarimeter currently in operation. In addition to being able to detect lensing induced B-polarization with extremely high accuracy, it will also search for the cosmic gravitational wave background down to two percent of the initial perturbation in power.
The First Receiver of its Kind
As the first receiver mounted in an array of telescopes, POLAR-1 will be capable of detecting and characterizing...
Read More »QUIET II
The QUIET experiment is designed to search for the imprint of inflation in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation by measuring so-called "B-mode" patterns of polarization that are expected to be produced by gravitational waves generated during inflation. This signature, which would allow the energy scale of inflation to be determined, is extremely faint, requiring instruments that are sensitive to nanoKelvin differences in radiation temperature. Measuring B-mode polarization is a...
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Solar Physics
Observational and theoretical research on the physics of the sun is carried out at Stanford University in several research groups. This URL will link you to the projects carried out by a group of scientists and supporting staff associated with the Center for Space Science and Astrophysics (CSSA) and the Hansen...
Read More »Wide-field Infrared Survey Telescope
WFIRST is a proposed infrared space telescope designed to study Dark Energy, our galaxy and to search for planets. WFIRST was the leading recommended large space-based project in the recent decadal survey, combining elements from the previous Joint Dark Energy Mission with a proposal to search for planets via gravitational lensing and perform infrared surveys. KIPAC scientists were very active in the development of instrumentation for a predecessor proposal JDEM, and are now looking...
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