Cmb-hd: An Ultra-Deep, High-Resolution Millimeter-Wave Survey Over Half the Sky

Neelima Sehgal, Simone Aiola, Yashar Akrami, Kaustuv Basu, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, Sean Bryan, Sebastien Clesse, Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine, Luca Di Mascolo, Simon Dicker, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, Simone Ferraro, George M. Fuller, Dongwon Han, Mathew Hasselfield, Gil Holder, Bhuvnesh Jain, Bradley Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Pamela KlaassenMathew Madhavacheril, Philip Mauskopf, Daan Meerburg, Joel Meyers, Tony Mroczkowski, Moritz Munchmeyer, Sigurd Naess, Daisuke Nagai, Toshiya Namikawa, Laura Newburgh, Ho Nam Nguyen, Michael Niemack, Benjamin D. Oppenheimer, Elena Pierpaoli, Emmanuel Schaan, Anze Slosar, David Spergel, Eric Switzer, Alexander van Engelen, Edward Wollack

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

A millimeter-wave survey over half the sky, that spans frequencies in the range of 30 to 350 GHz, and that is both an order of magnitude deeper and of higher-resolution than currently funded surveys would yield an enormous gain in understanding of both fundamental physics and astrophysics. By providing such a deep, high-resolution millimeter-wave survey (about 0.5 uK-arcmin noise and 15 arcsecond resolution at 150 GHz), CMB-HD will enable major advances. It will allow 1) the use of gravitational lensing of the primordial microwave background to map the distribution of matter on small scales (k~10/hMpc), which probes dark matter particle properties. It will also allow 2) measurements of the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects on small scales to map the gas density and gas pressure profiles of halos over a wide field, which probes galaxy evolution and cluster astrophysics. In addition, CMB-HD would allow us to cross critical thresholds in fundamental physics: 3) ruling out or detecting any new, light (< 0.1eV), thermal particles, which could potentially be the dark matter, and 4) testing a wide class of multi-field models that could explain an epoch of inflation in the early Universe. Such a survey would also 5) monitor the transient sky by mapping the full observing region every few days, which opens a new window on gamma-ray bursts, novae, fast radio bursts, and variable active galactic nuclei. Moreover, CMB-HD would 6) provide a census of planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids in the outer Solar System, and 7) enable the detection of exo-Oort clouds around other solar systems, shedding light on planet formation. CMB-HD will deliver this survey in 5 years of observing half the sky, using two new 30-meter-class off-axis cross-Dragone telescopes to be located at Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert. The telescopes will field about 2.4 million detectors (600,000 pixels) in total.
Original languageEnglish
JournalBulletin of the American Astronomical Society
DOIs
Publication statusSubmitted - 24-Jun-2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • astro-ph.CO
  • astro-ph.GA
  • hep-ph

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