The thirty gigahertz instrument receiver for the QUIJOTE experiment: preliminary polarization measurements and systematic-error analysis

This paper presents preliminary polarization measurements and systematic-error characterization of the Thirty Gigahertz Instrument receiver developed for the QUIJOTE experiment. The instrument has been designed to measure the polarization of Cosmic Microwave Background radiation from the sky, obtaining the Q, U, and I Stokes parameters of the incoming signal simultaneously. Two kinds of linearly polarized input signals have been used as excitations in the polarimeter measurement tests in the laboratory; these show consistent results in terms of the Stokes parameters obtained. A measurement-based systematic-error characterization technique has been used in order to determine the possible sources of instrumental errors and to assist in the polarimeter calibration process.The authors would like to thank Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness for the financial support provided under the CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 program under the reference CSD2010-00064 and the project under reference AYA2012-39475-C02-01