The performance of the bolometer array and readout system during the 2012/2013 flight of the E and B experiment (EBEX)

Understand

EBEX is a balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

• During its eleven day science flight in the Austral Summer of 2012, it operated 955 spider-web transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers separated into bands at 150, 250 and 410 GHz.
• This is the first time that an array of TES bolometers has been used on a balloon platform to conduct science observations.
• Polarization sensitivity was provided by a wire grid and continuously rotating half-wave plate.