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 astrophysicist. In October 2013 he became the director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands; IAC). He is a p ...

, with the goal of characterizing the polarization of the

cosmic microwave background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...

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

Teide Observatory Teide Observatory ( es, Observatorio del Teide), 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 bec ...

, 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, density of

baryonic matter In particle physics, a baryon is a type of composite subatomic particle which contains an odd number of valence quarks (at least 3). Baryons belong to the hadron family of particles; hadrons are composed of quarks. Baryons are also classifie ...

, 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 they are, the faster they are moving ...

, density of

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

density, and the

reionization In the fields of Big Bang theory and cosmology, reionization is the process that caused matter in the universe to reionize after the lapse of the " dark ages". Reionization is the second of two major phase transitions of gas in the universe (t ...

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