Characterization, deployment, and in-flight performance of the BLAST-TNG cryogenic receiver

The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter polarimeter designed to map interstellar dust and galactic foregrounds at 250, 350, and 500 microns during a 24-day Antarctic flight. The BLAST-TNG detector arrays are comprised of 918, 469, and 2...

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Published in:arXiv.org 2021-01
Main Authors: Lowe, Ian, Ade, Peter A R, Ashton, Peter C, Austermann, Jason E, Coppi, Gabriele, Cox, Erin G, Devlin, Mark J, Dober, Bradley J, Fanfani, Valentina, Fissel, Laura M, Galitzki, Nicholas, Gao, Jiansong, Gordon, Samuel, Groppi, Christopher E, Hilton, Gene C, Hubmayr, Johannes, Klein, Jeffrey, Li, Dale, Lourie, Nathan P, Mani, Hamdi, Mauskopf, Philip, McKenney, Christopher, Nati, Federico, Novak, Giles, Pisano, Giampaolo, Romualdez, L Javier, Soler, Juan D, Sinclair, Adrian, Tucker, Carole, Ullom, Joel, Vissers, Michael, Wheeler, Caleb, Williams, Paul A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antenna arrays
Cosmic dust
Detectors
Firmware
Flight characteristics
Interstellar matter
Open architectures
Pixels
Polarimeters
Reconfigurable hardware
Sensors
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Summary:The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter polarimeter designed to map interstellar dust and galactic foregrounds at 250, 350, and 500 microns during a 24-day Antarctic flight. The BLAST-TNG detector arrays are comprised of 918, 469, and 272 MKID pixels, respectively. The pixels are formed from two orthogonally oriented, crossed, linear-polarization sensitive MKID antennae. The arrays are cooled to sub 300mK temperatures and stabilized via a closed cycle \(^3\)He sorption fridge in combination with a \(^4\)He vacuum pot. The detectors are read out through a combination of the second-generation Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware (ROACH2) and custom RF electronics designed for BLAST-TNG. The firmware and software designed to readout and characterize these detectors was built from scratch by the BLAST team around these detectors, and has been adapted for use by other MKID instruments such as TolTEC and OLIMPO. We present an overview of these systems as well as in-depth methodology of the ground-based characterization and the measured in-flight performance.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2012.01372