Probing Fundamental Physics with the Spider Antarctic Long Duration Balloon Experiment

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The primary objective of the Spider Long Duration Balloon (LDB) project is to study the genesis of the early Universe and probing fundamental physics at energy scales that are far beyond the reach of terrestrial particle accelerators. While the main goal of the project is to validate experimentally the simplest Grant Unified Theory (GUT) scale Inflationary models or to exclude them, Spider will also address the following two important science goals: (a) improve our understanding of the interstellar medium in our own Milky Way Galaxy, especially the nature of diffuse high latitude dust and its interactions with the large scale magnetic field of the Galaxy, and (b) provide an unambiguous measurement of the weak gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization resulting from the integrated distribution of matter along the line of sight to the surface of last scattering. This award addresses the challenges of analyzing data from the Spider Antarctic flight, mostly focusing on the core capabilities that will maximize the science return from the massive Spider dataset. The project's objectives are: (i) to develop a massively scalable optimal (in the least squares sense) signal estimation facility, and (ii) to develop and test through simulations the practical foreground removal tools that leverage the combined Spider, WMAP, and Planck HFI datasets. As described in the proposal, the problems of signal estimation and foreground contamination are central to the Spider science. The broader impacts of this collaborative project are in its high degree of student and postdoc involvement in the project hardware tests and data processing analyses. The award supports a postdoctoral scholar.