Enabling a New Era of Cosmic Microwave Background Measurements

Eve Vavagiakis获得了美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学奖学金，在康奈尔大学和普林斯顿大学开展了一个研究和教育项目。Vavagiakis将承担一项数据分析和仪器开发计划，以推进宇宙微波背景（CMB）各向异性的应用，如Sunyaev-Zel'dovich （SZ）效应在宇宙测量中的应用。该项目的结果将使天文学家了解星系团的性质，并阐明星系演化和宇宙学。对于这个项目的教育部分，Vavagiakis将在当地高中进行天文学推广，为儿童读物系列开发教材，以现代nsf资助的实验为特色，并为缺乏服务和代表性不足的学生提供研究指导。该研究项目将实现对双动力学SZ效应的最高意义测量，并推动未来SZ测量来约束基础物理。为了实现这一目标，Vavagiakis将：分析来自阿塔卡马宇宙望远镜的CMB地图，并结合暗能量光谱仪器的数据；部署了一个基于动能电感探测器（KIDs）的低温阵列相机，这是她为早期科学设计的，带有一个新的亚毫米望远镜；并为现有和计划中的CMB望远镜开发一个扩展的多频管道，用于SZ分析。通过展示KIDs的背景限制灵敏度，该项目可能有助于将其作为未来毫米和亚毫米望远镜的首选探测器。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Eve Vavagiakis is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Cornell and Princeton universities. Vavagiakis will undertake a program of data analysis and instrumentation development to advance the use of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies such as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect for cosmological measurements. Results from the project will allow astronomers to understand properties of galaxy clusters and shed light on galaxy evolution and cosmology. For the education component of this project, Vavagiakis will conduct astronomy outreach to local high schools, develop educational materials to accompany a children’s book series featuring modern NSF-funded experiments, and provide research mentoring for underserved and underrepresented students.This research project will enable the highest significance measurement of the pairwise kinetic SZ effect and advance future SZ measurements to constrain fundamental physics. To achieve this goal, Vavagiakis will: analyze CMB maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope combined with data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument; deploy a cryogenic array camera based on kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) that she designed for early science with a new submillimeter telescope; and develop an extended multifrequency pipeline for SZ analyses for existing and planned CMB telescopes. By demonstrating the background-limited sensitivity of KIDs, this project might help establish them as detectors of choice for future millimeter and submillimeter telescopes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.