Updated design of the CMB polarization experiment satellite LiteBIRD

Understand

Recent developments of transition-edge sensors (TESs), based on extensive experience in ground-based experiments, have been making the sensor techniques mature enough for their application on future satellite CMB polarization experiments.

• LiteBIRD is in the most advanced phase among such future satellites, targeting its launch in Japanese Fiscal Year 2027 (2027FY) with JAXA's H3 rocket.
• It will accommodate more than 4000 TESs in focal planes of reflective low-frequency and refractive medium-and-high-frequency telescopes in order to detect a signature imprinted on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by the primordial gravitational waves predicted in cosmic inflation.
• The total wide frequency coverage between 34GHz and 448GHz enables us to extract such weak spiral polarization patterns through the precise subtraction of our Galaxy's foreground emission by using spectral differences among CMB and foreground signals.