BOOMERanG experiment
The BOOMERanG experiment (Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics) measured the cosmic microwave background radiation of a part of the sky during three sub-orbital (high altitude) balloon flights. It was the first experiment to make large, high fidelity images of the CMB temperature anisotropies. By using a telescope which flew at over 42,000 metres high, it was possible to reduce the atmospheric absorption of microwaves to a minimum. This allowed massive cost reduction compared to a satellite probe, though only a small part of the sky could be scanned.
The first was a test flight over North America in 1997. In the two subsequent flights in 1998 and 2003 the balloon was started at the McMurdo Station in the Antarctic. It used the Polar vortex winds to circle around the South Pole, returning after two weeks. From this phenomenon the telescope took its name.
Instrumentation
The experiment uses bolometers[1] for radiation detection. These bolometers are kept at a temperature of 0.27 Kelvins. At this temperature the material has a very low heat capacity according to the Debye law, thus incoming microwave light will cause a strong temperature change, proportional to the intensity of the incoming waves, which is measured with sensitive thermometers.
A 1.2 mirror[2] focuses the microwaves onto the focal plane which consist of 16 horns. These horns, operating at 145 GHz, 245 GHz and 345 GHz, are arranged into 8 pixel. So only a tiny fraction of the sky can be seen concurrently so the telescope has to rotate to scan the whole field of view.
Results
Together with experiments like Saskatoon, TOCO, MAXIMA, and others, the BOOMERanG data from 1997 and 1998 determined the angular diameter distance to the surface of last scattering with high precision. When combined with complementary data regarding the value of Hubble's constant, the Boomerang data determined the geometry of the Universe to be flat (see [1] and [2]) , supporting the supernova evidence for the existence of dark energy. The 2003 flight of Boomerang resulted in extremely high signal-to-noise ratio maps of the CMB temperature anisotropy, and a measurement of the polarization of the CMB.
References
- ^ "Instrumentation of the BOOMERranG experiment". Ted's Weblog. 2002-01-29. Retrieved 2007-04-06.
- ^ "Boomerang Instrument". Caltech Observational Cosmology Group. 2003-06-01. Retrieved 2007-04-06.