Revealing the high-redshift Universe with superconducting on-chip spectrometers

利用超导片上光谱仪揭示高红移宇宙

• 批准号: MR/W006499/1
• 负责人: Peter Barry
• 金额: $ 179.31万
• 依托单位: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FW006499%2F1
• 关键词: Revealing; redshift; Universe; superconducting; chip

How did the Universe begin? When did the first galaxies form? What is "dark energy"? These are some of the major outstanding questions in modern astronomy and cosmology. The answers to these questions are encoded in the distribution of matter and how it has evolved throughout the history of the Universe. This fellowship will develop a novel sensor technology that will enable a new class of astrophysical experiments that will probe of the evolution of structure throughout cosmic time.When we point our telescopes toward the night sky, we observe light that originates from millions of stars and galaxies. Because light takes time to travel to us, we are effectively looking back in time, and by taking images of the night sky we are able to build up a picture of the history of distribution of matter as the Universe evolved. To extract all the information about a galaxy, a measure of the total brightness and the colour of the light is needed. Spectrographs are able to separate light into colours, and are a key tool that can be used to construct large catalogues of galaxies. These galaxy surveys, in combination with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), have shaped our current understanding of the origin, content, and evolution of the Universe. Despite this wealth of data, direct evidence of how our Universe began and a true understanding of dark energy remain elusive. Typical galaxy surveys are built using powerful telescopes that operate at optical/infrared wavelengths. This choice of wavelength is well suited to nearby galaxies, probing only late times whilst leaving the early Universe relatively undiscovered. The expansion of the Universe modifies the light emitted from very distant galaxies and stretches the wavelength into the sub-millimetre (sub-mm) wavelength range. Detection of this faint sub-mm light poses a number of challenges and requires a fundamentally different detection technology to traditional semiconductor arrays. While mature solutions exist for sub-mm single-colour cameras, technology for sub-mm spectroscopy is an area requiring dedicated development. Current state-of-the art instruments are bulky and expensive, often requiring moving parts that are challenging to scale. The main technical objective of this fellowship will be to develop a novel technology that provides a miniaturised, low-cost solution that takes advantage of well-established techniques. The key to this technology is a combination of finely tuned superconducting integrated circuits deposited on a single silicon wafer. With superconducting circuits defined lithographically, an entire spectrometer can be realised on a square centimetre of silicon; this functionality would previously have required an instrument close to a metre in size. The significant reduction in size and cost will enable the construction of 2D arrays with thousands of spectrometers, and building on the heritage and experience gained from initial proof-of-concept devices, this fellowship will develop, demonstrate, and optimise scalable on-chip superconducting spectrometers capable of operating over the entire sub-mm wavelength range. A dedicated demonstration at the Mexican 50-m Large Millimetre Telescope within this fellowship offers a unique opportunity to boost the maturity of this novel technology, and success would open up a new class of galaxy surveys that target the earliest galaxies in our Universe, complementing existing optical/infrared galaxy surveys. In fact, the combination of these techniques would serve as important systematic cross-checks, and cross-correlations between the surveys promise to be a powerful approach to further improve constraints on cosmological parameters.

宇宙是如何开始的？第一个星系是什么时候形成的？什么是“暗能量”？这些是现代天文学和宇宙学中一些主要的悬而未决的问题。这些问题的答案被编码在物质的分布中，以及它在整个宇宙历史中是如何演变的。该奖学金将开发一种新型传感器技术，从而实现一类新的天体物理实验，探索整个宇宙时间的结构演变。当我们将望远镜指向夜空时，我们会观察到来自数百万颗恒星的光和星系。因为光需要时间才能到达我们这里，所以我们实际上是在回顾过去，通过拍摄夜空的图像，我们能够建立一幅宇宙演化过程中物质分布历史的图片。为了提取关于星系的所有信息，需要测量总亮度和光的颜色。光谱仪能够将光分离成各种颜色，并且是可以用于构建大型星系目录的关键工具。这些星系巡天与宇宙微波背景辐射（CMB）相结合，塑造了我们目前对宇宙起源、内容和演化的理解。尽管有如此丰富的数据，我们宇宙如何开始的直接证据和对暗能量的真正理解仍然难以捉摸。典型的星系调查是使用在光学/红外波长下工作的强大望远镜进行的。这种波长的选择非常适合附近的星系，只探测晚期，而早期宇宙相对未被发现。宇宙的膨胀改变了从非常遥远的星系发出的光，并将波长扩展到亚毫米（sub-mm）波长范围。检测这种微弱的亚毫米光带来了许多挑战，需要与传统半导体阵列完全不同的检测技术。虽然亚毫米单色相机已有成熟的解决方案，但亚毫米光谱技术是一个需要专门开发的领域。目前最先进的仪器体积庞大且昂贵，通常需要难以缩放的移动部件。该奖学金的主要技术目标将是开发一种新技术，提供一种利用成熟技术的低成本解决方案。这项技术的关键是在一个硅片上沉积一组微调的超导集成电路。利用光刻定义的超导电路，整个光谱仪可以在一平方厘米的硅上实现;这种功能以前需要一个接近一米大小的仪器。尺寸和成本的显着降低将使构建具有数千个光谱仪的2D阵列成为可能，并建立在从最初的概念验证设备中获得的遗产和经验的基础上，该奖学金将开发，演示和优化能够在整个亚毫米波长范围内运行的可扩展片上超导光谱仪。在墨西哥50米大型毫米望远镜的专门演示提供了一个独特的机会，以促进这种新技术的成熟，成功将开辟一个新的星系调查，目标是我们宇宙中最早的星系，补充现有的光学/红外星系调查。事实上，这些技术的结合将成为重要的系统交叉检查，调查之间的互相关有望成为进一步改善宇宙学参数约束的有力方法。

项目成果

SPT-SLIM: A Line Intensity Mapping Pathfinder for the South Pole Telescope

SPT-SLIM：南极望远镜的线强度测绘探路者

• DOI: 10.1007/s10909-022-02702-2
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of Low Temperature Physics
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: Karkare, K. S.;Anderson, A. J.;Barry, P. S.;Benson, B. A.;Carlstrom, J. E.;Cecil, T.;Chang, C. L.;Dobbs, M. A.;Hollister, M.;Keating, G. K.
• 通讯作者: Keating, G. K.

Optical Leakage Mitigation in Ortho-Mode Transducer Detectors for Microwave Applications

用于微波应用的正交模式传感器探测器中的光泄漏缓解

• DOI: 10.1007/s10909-022-02733-9
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of Low Temperature Physics
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: Gualtieri R

SPT-3G+: mapping the high-frequency cosmic microwave background using kinetic inductance detectors

SPT-3G：使用动感电感探测器绘制高频宇宙微波背景图

• DOI: 10.1117/12.2629755
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Anderson A

Development of MKIDs for Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background with the South Pole Telescope

• DOI: 10.1007/s10909-022-02750-8
• 发表时间: 2021-11
• 期刊: Journal of Low Temperature Physics
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: K. Dibert;P. Barry;Z. Pan;A. Anderson;B. Benson;Clarence Chang;K. Karkare;Juliang Li;T. Natoli;M. Rouble;E. Shirokoff;A. Stark

Reducing Frequency Scatter in Large Arrays of Superconducting Resonators with Inductor Line Width Control

• DOI: 10.1007/s10909-022-02893-8
• 发表时间: 2022-11
• 期刊: Journal of Low Temperature Physics
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: J. Li;P. Barry;Z. Pan;C. Albert;T. Cecil;C. L. Chang;K. Dibert;M. Lisovenko;V. Yefremenko