Oxford Experimental Radio/mm Cosmology
Clover - a B-mode CMB polarization experiment
Clover is a UK-led project to detect the imprint of inflationary gravity waves on the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The institutions involved are Cambridge, Cardiff, Manchester and Oxford, with funding provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
The CMB is the afterglow of the Big Bang, with the light reaching us from just 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Theories of the very early Universe suggest that a very brief "Inflationary" period occurred during which the Universe expanded millions of times. This inflationary period should leave an imprint on the CMB, which Clover will search for.
Clover consists of two telescopes, each with two large mirrors mounted inside an absorbing baffle. The cryostat containing the receiver is mounted on the side of the optical assembly, with the whole lot supported on a 3-axis mount. The mount allows the telescope to point to any point on the sky, and to rotate around its optical axis. This will help monitor the systematics.
For more information on the instrument see the Instrument pages.
Clover will be sited in the Atacama Desert. For more information see the Site pages.
Science Goals of CLOVER
- Detect primordial B-mode signal from inflationary gravity waves to the lensing confusion limit.
- Measure the B-mode signal from gravitational lensing.
- Fully characterize the T and E-mode signals.
- Improve the accuracy of the values of a collection of cosmological parameters
- Characterize the polarization of Galactic signals, such as synchrotron radiation and dust
The graphs below show the predicted sensitivity of Clover to the two modes of polarisation in the CMB, the "E-mode" (left) and the "B-mode" (right). The B-mode is much fainter than the E-mode.
Clover Papers and Presentations
- Clover - Measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode Polarization, Paul Grimes for the Clover collaboration, to appear in the Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, Charlottesville, VA, April 20-22 2009
- Clover (title tbc), Mike Jones for the Clover collaboration, NAM/JENAM 2009, 20-24th April, 2009
- Clover - Measuring the CMB B-mode Polarisation, to appear in Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, Caltech, March 21-23, 2007
- CLOVER - A B-mode polarization instrument,
Proceedings of the Fundamental Physics With CMB workshop, UC Irvine,
March 23-25, 2006, to be published in New Astronomy Reviews.
- CLOVER - A new instrument for measuring the B-mode polarization of the CMB , Proceedings of XXXIXth Recontres de Moriond, Editions Frontiers, 2004.
- Prototype finline-coupled TES bolometers for CLOVER, to appear in the Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, Paris, May 10-12, 2006
- TES imaging array technology for CLOVER, SPIE Orlando, May 24-31, 2006
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