11:00 am–12:00 pm ERC 401
Host: Erin Healy
Suzanne Staggs (Princeton University) "Science from and for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope & Beyond"
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) made measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for fifteen years, with a series of three cameras. ACT, like SPT, was designed to complement Planck, the latest and most sensitive CMB satellite, in part by providing higher angular resolution. To compete with the powerful data set provided from a major space mission requires years of observations from bespoke arrays of thousands of detectors; for ACT these are cooled to 100 mK and deployed on the eponymous special-purpose 6 m telescope, on an arid plateau at 5190 m. Meanwhile, Simons Observatory (SO) is a suite of telescopes including a new 6 m telescope, and CMB-S4 plans several more such large telescopes. Why the continuing enthusiasm? There is more to learn! High-resolution low-noise CMB data contain multitudes of tracers not only of the primordial universe but also of its subsequent evolution. I will give some recent examples from ACT, accompanied with some details on the instrument, and indicate future directions.
