The QUIJOTE CMB Experiment is an ongoing experiment started in November 2012, and led by

Rafael Rebolo López Rafael Rebolo López (born September 12, 1961, in Cartagena, Spain) is a Spanish Astrophysics, astrophysicist. In October 2013 he became the director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands; I ...

, with the goal of characterizing the polarization of the

cosmic microwave background The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), or relic radiation, is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dar ...

(CMB) and other galactic and extragalactic emission in the frequency range 10 to 40 GHz, at angular scales of 1°. These measurements will complement at low frequency and correct from galactic contamination those obtained by the

Planck satellite ''Planck'' was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013. It was an ambitious project that aimed to map the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, wi ...

from 2009 to 2013. The two QUIJOTE telescopes are placed at the

Teide Observatory Teide Observatory (), IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at , located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major ...

, run by the Spanish Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). Both telescopes were produced by the IDOM company in Spain.

Overview

The primordial matter density fluctuations that originated the present structure of the universe left imprinted spatial variations in the CMB radiation. From high sensitivity maps of this radiation, QUIJOTE aims to constrain the most relevant cosmological parameters: total energy/matter density, density of

cold dark matter In cosmology and physics, cold dark matter (CDM) is a hypothetical type of dark matter. According to the current standard model of cosmology, Lambda-CDM model, approximately 27% of the universe is dark matter and 68% is dark energy, with only a sm ...

, density of

baryonic matter In particle physics, a baryon is a type of composite subatomic particle that contains an odd number of valence quarks, conventionally three. Protons and neutrons are examples of baryons; because baryons are composed of quarks, they belong to ...

, the

Hubble constant Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther a galaxy is from the Earth, the faste ...

, density of

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is a proposed form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. Its primary effect is to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe. It also slows the rate of structure format ...

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...

density, and the

reionization In the fields of Big Bang theory and physical cosmology, cosmology, reionization is the process that caused electrically neutral atoms in the primordial universe to reionize after the lapse of the "Timeline of the Big Bang#Dark Ages, dark ages". ...

epoch.

The first QUIJOTE-CMB telescope (QT1), in operation since November 2012, has two instruments which can be exchanged in the QT1 focal plane. The first instrument (MFI) is a multichannel instrument providing the frequency coverage between 10 and 20 GHz. The second instrument (TGI) consists of 31 polarimeters working at 30 GHz.
The second QUIJOTE-CMB telescope (QT2), in operation since 2014,QUIJOTE CMB Experiment: Telescope & Enclosure
IDOM Engineering; 2015. will house a third instrument (FGI) with 31 polarimeters working at 40 GHz.

References

External links

QUIJOTE telescope design and fabrication
A. Gómez et al., 2010, Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7733, id. 773329. {{CMB_experiments Cosmic microwave background experiments

Overview

See also

References

External links