Probing Fundamental Physics with the Spider Antarctic Long Duration Balloon Experiment

通过蜘蛛南极长时间气球实验探索基础物理

• 批准号: 1043515
• 负责人: William Jones
• 金额: $ 25.79万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-06-15 至 2014-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1043515&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Probing; Fundamental; Physics; Spider; Antarctic

The primary objective of the Spider Long Duration Balloon (LDB) project is to study the genesis of the early Universe and probing fundamental physics at energy scales that are far beyond the reach of terrestrial particle accelerators. While the main goal of the project is to validate experimentally the simplest Grant Unified Theory (GUT) scale Inflationary models or to exclude them, Spider will also address the following two important science goals: (a) improve our understanding of the interstellar medium in our own Milky Way Galaxy, especially the nature of diffuse high latitude dust and its interactions with the large scale magnetic field of the Galaxy, and (b) provide an unambiguous measurement of the weak gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization resulting from the integrated distribution of matter along the line of sight to the surface of last scattering. This award addresses the challenges of analyzing data from the Spider Antarctic flight, mostly focusing on the core capabilities that will maximize the science return from the massive Spider dataset. The project's objectives are: (i) to develop a massively scalable optimal (in the least squares sense) signal estimation facility, and (ii) to develop and test through simulations the practical foreground removal tools that leverage the combined Spider, WMAP, and Planck HFI datasets. As described in the proposal, the problems of signal estimation and foreground contamination are central to the Spider science. The broader impacts of this collaborative project are in its high degree of student and postdoc involvement in the project hardware tests and data processing analyses. The award supports a postdoctoral scholar.

蜘蛛长持续时间气球（LDB）项目的主要目标是研究早期宇宙的起源，并在能量尺度上探测基本物理，远远超出了陆地颗粒加速器的范围。虽然该项目的主要目标是在实验上验证最简单的授予统一理论（GUT）规模通货膨胀模型或排除它们，但蜘蛛还将解决以下两个重要的科学目标：（a）提高我们对银河系中星际媒介的理解宇宙微波背景（CMB）极化的镜头是由于沿视线到最后散射表面的物质的综合分布而产生的。该奖项旨在解决分析蜘蛛南极飞行数据的数据的挑战，主要集中在核心能力上，这些功能将最大程度地提高大型蜘蛛数据集的科学回报。该项目的目标是：（i）开发一个可扩展的最佳（在最小二乘意义上）信号估计设施，以及（ii）通过模拟开发和测试实用的前景拆卸工具，该工具利用合并的蜘蛛，WMAP和Planck HFI数据集。如提案中所述，信号估计和前景污染的问题对于蜘蛛科学至关重要。该协作项目的更广泛影响是其高度的学生和博士后参与项目硬件测试和数据处理分析。该奖项支持博士后学者。