The POLARBEAR Experiment

Understand

We present the design and characterization of the POLARBEAR experiment.

• POLARBEAR will measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on angular scales ranging from the experiment's 3.5 arcminute beam size to several degrees.
• The experiment utilizes a unique focal plane of 1,274 antenna-coupled, polarization sensitive TES bolometers cooled to 250 milliKelvin.
• Employing this focal plane along with stringent control over systematic errors, POLARBEAR has the sensitivity to detect the expected small scale B-mode signal due to gravitational lensing and search for the large scale B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves.