The QUIJOTE-CMB experiment: current status and future plans

by Ricardo Genova-Santos (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias)

Monday 11 Nov 2013, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G. Marconi)

The QUIJOTE (Q-U-I JOint TEnerife) Experiment is designed to perform high sensitivity measurements of the polarization of the CMB and relevant foregrounds in the frequency range 10-40 GHz. The project consists of two telescopes and three instruments which will explore a large sky area (5000 sq deg) from the Teide Observatory (Tenerife). The Multi-Frequency Instrument (MFI) is performing routine observations of selected sky areas at 10-20 GHz since November 2012. The second telescope and two additional instruments at 30 and 40 GHz are currently under construction. In this talk I will describe the goals of this project, in what concerns both its potential to correct for low-frequency polarized foregrounds (synchrotron and, if polarized, the anomalous microwave emission) and to set constraints on the tensor to scalar ratio at the level of r~0.05. I will also present some preliminary maps obtained with the MFI during the first year of operation of this experiment, in different sky regions dominated by synchrotron and anomalous microwave emissions.