MAXIPOL: Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimetry Using a Rotating Half-Wave Plate
- Johnson, B. R.
- Collins, J.
- Abroe, M. E.
- Ade, Peter A. R.
- Bock, J.
- Borrill, J.
- Boscaleri, A.
- de Bernardis, P.
- Hanany, S.
- Jaffe, A. H.
- Jones, T.
- Lee, A. T.
- Levinson, L.
- Matsumura, T.
- Rabii, B.
- Renbarger, T.
- Richards, P. L.
- Smoot, G. F.
- Stompor, R.
- Tran, H. T.
- Winant, C. D.
- Wu, J. H. P.
- Zuntz, J.
DOIAbstract
We discuss MAXIPOL, a bolometric balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the E-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). MAXIPOL is the first bolometric CMB experiment to observe the sky using rapid polarization modulation. To build MAXIPOL, the CMB temperature anisotropy experiment MAXIMA was retrofitted with a rotating half-wave plate and a stationary analyzer. We describe the instrument, the observations, the calibration, and the reduction of data collected with 12 polarimeters operating at 140 GHz and with a FWHM beam size of 10'. We present maps of the Q and U Stokes parameters of an 8 deg2 region of the sky near the star β UMi. The power spectra computed from these maps give weak evidence for an EE sig...
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