Taurus

Taurus is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Galactic dust polarimeter. It is designed to fly on NASA’s super-pressure balloon from Wanaka, New Zealand. The primary goal is to better measure the very low-ell polarized sky. Specifically, it will improve measurements on the optical depth to reionization by measuring low-ell EE, search for large-scale cosmic anomalies, and characterize polarized foregrounds at many frequencies over a large fraction of the sky. The instrument will map roughly 70% of the sky using more than 10,000 transition-edge sensor bolometers. These bolometers will measure at 150, 220, 280, and 350 GHz, with detectors operated at near 100 mK.

The payload will be a wet cryostat, built around a main tank that holds liquid helium, with a superfluid tank and per-telescope closed-cycle fridges. The experiment will charge the solar panels and fridge cycle during the day, and do observing during the night. Observation will involve constant velocity twirling, using sky rotation to drag the observing ring across the sky. There will be stepping half-wave plates just like SPIDER, to improve our per-detector Q/U coverage. The mid-latitude super-pressure platform allows for a much larger sky fraction and longer flight time, at the cost of a lower payload mass and power (Antarctica has 24 hrs of sun to charge the panels).

To date, my primary comtributions have been to design these logos and drawings below. I have also helped review papers and provide feedback to student projects.