MRI-R2: Development of a Low-Frequency Microwave Polarimeter for Large Scale Surveys

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。纵观历史和所有文化，人类对我们宇宙的起源感到好奇。 今天的科学对这些起源的理解仍然留下了许多未解之谜：为什么宇宙的几何形状如此平坦？ 为什么宇宙如此均匀？ 理论宇宙学家对这些问题提出了答案，但这些理论极难验证。 早期宇宙的暴胀现在是被广泛接受的理论解释，但暴胀理论的微妙预测的经验测量是难以捉摸的。 约翰霍普金斯大学的查尔斯班尼特博士正在建造一台精密的仪器，以测量宇宙微波背景（CMB）上非常微弱的印记，膨胀理论预测这是由引力波造成的。 关键是测量CMB中所谓的“B模式偏振”的各向异性。这是大海捞针，需要非常小心地从天空中非常强的不相关前景信号中检测和分离出非常弱的远处信号。 班尼特博士设计了一种仪器，他认为这种仪器最有可能通过瞄准信号相对于前景信号最强的尺度来进行这种测量。 该仪器的开发由国家科学基金会的主要研究仪器计划通过天文科学部资助。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Throughout history and all cultures mankind has wondered about the beginnings of our universe. Today's scientific understanding of those beginnings still leaves many unanswered questions: Why is the geometry of the universe so flat? Why is the universe so homogeneous? Theoretical cosmologists have posed answers to these questions, but the theories are extremely difficult to verify. Inflation in the very early universe is now the widely accepted theoretical explanation, but empirical measurements of the subtle predictions of inflation theory are elusive. Dr. Charles Bennett of The Johns Hopkins University is building a sophisticated instrument to make a measurement of the very faint imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) that inflation theory predicts would have been made by gravitational waves. The key is to measure the anisotropy of the so-called "B mode polarization" in the CMB. This is a search for a veritable needle in a haystack and great care is required to detect and isolate the very weak distant signature from the very strong unrelated foreground signals on the sky. Dr. Bennett has designed an instrument that he suggests stands the best chance for making this measurement by targeting the scales where the signature is strongest relative to the foreground signals. Development of this instrument is funded by the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation program through the Division of Astronomical Sciences.