Anthony C. S. Readhead (California Institute of Technology)

Campus PI

Tzu-Ching Chang (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

JPL PI

Co-Investigators:

• Kieran Cleary, Caltech
• Sarah Church, Stanford
• Andrew Harris, Maryland

Overview

The KISS Study Program on The First Billion Years identified several new spectral probes that will help to reveal this terra incognita. These very faint spectral lines of atomic and molecular species in the centimeter to submillimeter wavelength range are currently undetectable, but the Study showed that new technology developments can make them accessible and laid out a roadmap for this work.

This project will develop key technology and a science pathfinder instrument that will pave the way for future more sensitive ground-based experiments covering 15-50GHz and 75-115 GHz, and for both balloon and space experiments covering 50-75 GHz. Successful completion of the program will achieve the following:

• Develop feeds, polarizers, and optics suitable for these experiments.
• Develop the required low-noise amplifiers and amplifier modules for Ka-band (26.5-40 GHz) and V-band (50-80 GHz).
• Develop the digital backend architecture required to process the data from very broadband spectrographs.
• Demonstrate that the intensity-mapped CO signal can be measured, and can be used by large future instruments on the ground, on balloons, and in space to reveal the Universe during the Epoch of Reionization.