Probing the Early Universe with Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Anisotropies and Bringing our Research Into New York City Classrooms

Britt Reichborne-Kjennerud博士被授予美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在哥伦比亚大学开展研究和教育计划。现在和未来测量宇宙微波背景(CMB)极化各向异性的实验有望提供对宇宙起源、组成和动力学的前所未有的理解，以及可能是迄今为止支持膨胀理论的最强有力的证据。为了推进尖端CMB偏振实验的设计，Reichborne-Kjennerud博士将在哥伦比亚大学的一个新的专用测试设施中领导一项倡议，对下一代偏振敏感测辐射热探测器进行表征。Reichborne-Kjennerud博士还将在南极飞行活动和E和B实验(EBEX)的数据分析中发挥关键作用，EBEX是CMB的领先偏振仪器。EBEX在同时代中是独一无二的，因为它结合了高频覆盖和对大范围尺度的敏感性；这些特征将使EBEX能够对银河系极化尘埃前景的幅度进行前所未有的测量，这将在分析来自未来CMB仪器的数据方面发挥关键作用。此外，EBEX将探测尚未探测到的CMB偏振B模信号，这些信号是在宇宙的第一部分秒内印记的，以及在较晚的时候由于前景物质的透镜而印记的。Reichborne-Kjennerud还将把正在进行的针对纽约市公立高中学生和教师的暑期外展计划扩大为一个全年计划，可以在其他机构复制。在该项目的每一年中，一名教师和两名学生将在暑期加入实验室，完成一个动手研究项目，了解天体物理学以及实验室和大学环境。EBEX时间表将允许实验充当一个理想的平台，教师和学生将在上面参与构建实验硬件并在科学团队中工作，参与者将在实验从实验室旅行到南极洲和太空边缘的过程中获得第一手经验。每位教师将与Reichborne-Kjennerud博士合作，制定一项行动计划，通过与学生分析科学数据、学生访问实验室和实验室成员访问学校等学年活动，将研究经验带回课堂。

Dr. Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Columbia University. Contemporary and future experiments that measure cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization anisotropies hold the promise of providing an unprecedented understanding of the origin, composition and dynamics of the universe, as well as possibly the strongest evidence yet supporting inflation theory. To push forward the design of a cutting-edge CMB polarization experiment, Dr. Reichborn-Kjennerud will lead an initiative to characterize the next generation of polarization-sensitive bolometric detectors in a new dedicated testing facility at Columbia University. Dr. Reichborn-Kjennerud will also play a key role in the Antarctic flight campaign and data analysis of the E and B Experiment (EBEX), a leading CMB polarization instrument. EBEX is unique among its contemporaries in its combination of high-frequency coverage and sensitivity to a wide range of scales; these characteristics will allow EBEX to make unprecedented measurements of the amplitude of the galactic polarized dust foreground, which will play a critical role in the analysis of data from future CMB instruments. Additionally, EBEX will probe both of the yet-undetected CMB polarization B-mode signals that were imprinted during the first fraction of a second of the universe, and at late times due to the lensing of foreground matter.Dr. Reichborn-Kjennerud will also expand an ongoing summer outreach program for New York City public high school students and teachers into a full-year program that would be replicable at other institutions. During each year of the program, one teacher and two students will join the lab during the summer to complete a hands-on research project and to learn about astrophysics and about the lab and university environments. The EBEX timeline will allow the experiment to act as an ideal platform on which the teachers and students will participate in building experimental hardware and working in scientific teams, and the participants will gain first-hand experience with an experiment as it travels from the lab, to Antarctica, and to the edge of space. Each teacher will work with Dr. Reichborn-Kjennerud to produce an action plan for bringing the research experience back to the classroom through school-year activities such as analysis of science data with students, student visits to the lab, and visits by lab members to the school.