@inproceedings{a60965747527450a84b597465ca767d4,
title = "Optical design of PICO: A concept for a space mission to probe inflation and cosmic origins",
abstract = "The Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (PICO) is a probe-class mission concept currently under study by NASA. PICO will probe the physics of the Big Bang and the energy scale of inflation, constrain the sum of neutrino masses, measure the growth of structures in the universe, and constrain its reionization history by making full sky maps of the cosmic microwave background with sensitivity 80 times higher than the Planck space mission. With bands at 21-799 GHz and arcmin resolution at the highest frequencies, PICO will make polarization maps of Galactic synchrotron and dust emission to observe the role of magnetic fields in Milky Way's evolution and star formation. We discuss PICO's optical system, focal plane, and give current best case noise estimates. The optical design is a two-reflector optimized open-Dragone design with a cold aperture stop. It gives a diffraction limited field of view (DLFOV) with throughput of 910 cm2sr at 21 GHz. The large 82 square degree DLFOV hosts 12,996 transition edge sensor bolometers distributed in 21 frequency bands and maintained at 0.1 K. We use focal plane technologies that are currently implemented on operating CMB instruments including three-color multi-chroic pixels and multiplexed readouts. To our knowledge, this is the first use of an open-Dragone design for mm-wave astrophysical observations, and the only monolithic CMB instrument to have such a broad frequency coverage. With current best case estimate polarization depth of 0.65 μKCMB-arcmin over the entire sky, PICO is the most sensitive CMB instrument designed to date.",
keywords = "Cosmic microwave background, Cosmology, Instrument design, Mission concept, Mm-wave optics, Polarimetry, Satel- lite",
author = "Karl Young and Marcelo Alvarez and Nicholas Battaglia and Jamie Bock and Jullian Borrill and David Chuss and Brendan Crill and Jacques Delabrouille and Mark Devlin and Laura Fissel and Raphael Flauger and Daniel Green and Kris Gorski and Shaul Hanany and Richard Hills and Johannes Hubmayr and Bradley Johnson and William Jones and Lloyd Knox and Alan Kogut and Charles Lawrence and Tomotake Matsumura and James McGuire and Jeff McMahon and Roger O'Brient and Clement Pryke and Sutin, {Brian M.} and Tan, {Xin Zhi} and Amy Trangsrud and Qi Wen and {De Zotti}, Gianfranco",
note = "Funding Information: This Probe mission concept study is funded by NASA grant #NNX17AK52G. Gianfranco de Zotti acknowledges financial support from the ASI/University of Roma–Tor Vergata agreement n. 2016-24-H.0 for study activities of the Italian cosmology community. Jacques Delabrouille acknowledges financial support from PNCG for participating to the PICO study. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.; Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave ; Conference date: 10-06-2018 Through 15-06-2018",
year = "2018",
doi = "10.1117/12.2309421",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781510619494",
series = "Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering",
publisher = "SPIE",
editor = "Fazio, {Giovanni G.} and MacEwen, {Howard A.} and Makenzie Lystrup",
booktitle = "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018",
address = "United States",
}