Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) is a bolometric polarimeter designed to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. During three seasons of observing at the South Pole (2006 through 2008), BICEP mapped ∼ 2% of the sky chosen to be uniquely clean of polarized foreground emission. Here, we present initial results derived from a subset of the data acquired during the first two years. We present maps of temperature, Stokes Q and U, E and B modes, and associated angular power spectra. We demonstrate that the polarization data are self-consistent by performing a series of jackknife tests. We study potential systematic errors in detail and show that they are sub-dominant to the statistical errors. We measure the E-mode angular power spectrum with high precision at 21 ≤ ≤ 335, detecting for the first time the peak expected at ∼ 140. The measured E-mode spectrum is consistent with expectations from a ΛCDM model, and the B-mode spectrum is consistent with zero. The tensor-to-scalar ratio derived from the B-mode spectrum is r = 0.02 +0.31 −0.26 , or r < 0.72 at 95% confidence, the first meaningful constraint on the inflationary gravitational wave background to come directly from CMB B-mode polarization.

Interplanetary dust (IPD) scatters solar radiation which results in the zodiacal light that dominates the celestial diffuse brightness at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Both asteroid collisions and cometary ejections produce the IPD, but the relative contribution from these two sources is still unknown. The Low Resolution Spectrometer (LRS) onboard the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER) observed the astrophysical sky spectrum between 0.75 and 2.1 µm over a wide range of ecliptic latitude. The resulting zodiacal light spectrum is redder than the solar spectrum, and shows a broad absorption feature, previously unreported, at approximately 0.9 µm, suggesting the existence of silicates in the IPD material. The spectral shape of the zodiacal light is isotropic at all ecliptic latitudes within the measurement error. The zodiacal light spectrum, including the extended wavelength range to 2.5 µm using Infrared Telescope in Space (IRTS) data, is qualitatively similar to the reflectance of S-type asteroids. This result can be explained by the proximity of S-type asteroidal dust to Earth's orbit, and the relatively high albedo of asteroidal dust compared with cometary dust.

The Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (Bicep) experiment was designed specifically to search for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Using a novel small-aperture refractor and 49 pairs of polarization-sensitive bolometers, Bicep has completed three years of successful observations at the South Pole beginning in 2006 February. To constrain the amplitude of the inflationary B-mode polarization, which is expected to be at least 7 orders of magnitude fainter than the 3 K CMB intensity, precise control of systematic effects is essential. This paper describes the characterization of potential systematic errors for the Bicep experiment, supplementing a companion paper on the initial cosmological results. Using the analysis pipelines for the experiment, we have simulated the impact of systematic errors on the B-mode polarization measurement. Guided by these simulations, we have established benchmarks for the characterization of critical instrumental properties including bolometer relative gains, beam mismatch, polarization orientation, telescope pointing, sidelobes, thermal stability, and timestream noise model. A comparison of the benchmarks with the measured values shows that we have characterized the instrument adequately to ensure that systematic errors do not limit Bicep's two-year results, and identifies which future refinements are likely necessary to probe inflationary B-mode polarization down to levels below a tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.1.

The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER) is a suite of four instruments designed to study the near infrared (IR) background light from above the Earth's atmosphere. The instrument package comprises two imaging telescopes designed to characterize spatial anisotropy in the extragalactic IR background caused by cosmological structure during the epoch of reionization, a low resolution spectrometer to measure the absolute spectrum of the extragalactic IR background, and a narrow band spectrometer optimized to measure the absolute brightness of the zodiacal light foreground. In this paper we describe the design and characterization of the CIBER payload. The detailed mechanical, cryogenic, and electrical design of the system are presented, including all system components common to the four instruments. We present the methods and equipment used to characterize the instruments before and after flight, and give a detailed description of CIBER's flight profile and configurations. CIBER is designed to be recoverable and has flown four times, with modifications to the payload having been informed by analysis of the first flight data. All four instruments performed to specifications during the subsequent flights, and the scientific data from these flights are currently being analyzed.

We have developed and characterized an imaging instrument to measure the spatial properties of the diffuse near-infrared extragalactic background light (EBL) in a search for fluctuations from z > 6 galaxies during the epoch of reionization. The instrument is part of the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER), designed to observe the EBL above Earth's atmosphere during a suborbital sounding rocket flight. The imaging instrument incorporates a 2 • × 2 • field of view to measure fluctuations over the predicted peak of the spatial power spectrum at 10 arcmin, and 7 × 7 pixels, to remove lower redshift galaxies to a depth sufficient to reduce the low-redshift galaxy clustering foreground below instrumental sensitivity. The imaging instrument employs two cameras with Δλ/λ ∼ 0.5 bandpasses centered at 1.1 μm and 1.6 μm to spectrally discriminate reionization extragalactic background fluctuations from local foreground fluctuations. CIBER operates at wavelengths where the electromagnetic spectrum of the reionization extragalactic background is thought to peak, and complements fluctuation measurements by AKARI and Spitzer at longer wavelengths. We have characterized the instrument in the laboratory, including measurements of the sensitivity, flat-field response, stray light performance, and noise properties. Several modifications were made to the instrument following a first flight in 2009 February. The instrument performed to specifications in three subsequent flights, and the scientific data are now being analyzed.

BICEP1 is a millimeter-wavelength telescope designed specifically to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background at degree angular scales. We present results from an analysis of the data acquired during three seasons of observations at the South Pole (2006-2008). This work extends the two-year result published in Chiang et al., with additional data from the third season and relaxed detector-selection criteria. This analysis also introduces a more comprehensive estimation of band power window functions, improved likelihood estimation methods, and a new technique for deprojecting monopole temperature-to-polarization leakage that reduces this class of systematic uncertainty to a negligible level. We present maps of temperature, E-and B-mode polarization, and their associated angular power spectra. The improvement in the map noise level and polarization spectra error bars are consistent with the 52% increase in integration time relative to Chiang et al. We confirm both self-consistency of the polarization data and consistency with the two-year results. We measure the angular power spectra at 21 335 and find that the EE spectrum is consistent with Lambda cold dark matter cosmology, with the first acoustic peak of the EE spectrum now detected at 15σ. The BB spectrum remains consistent with zero. From B-modes only, we constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio to r = 0.03 +0.

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeters aspire to measure the faint B-mode signature predicted to arise from inflationary gravitational waves. They also have the potential to constrain cosmic birefringence, rotation of the polarization of the CMB arising from parity-violating physics, which would produce nonzero expectation values for the CMB's temperature to B-mode correlation (TB) and E-mode to B-mode correlation (EB) spectra. However, instrumental systematic effects can also cause these TB and EB correlations to be nonzero. In particular, an overall miscalibration of the polarization orientation of the detectors produces TB and EB spectra which are degenerate with isotropic cosmological birefringence, while also introducing a small but predictable bias on the BB spectrum. We find that BICEP1 three-year spectra, which use our standard calibration of detector polarization angles from a dielectric sheet, are consistent with a polarization rotation of α ¼ −2.77°AE 0.86°ðstatisticalÞ AE 1.3°ðsystematicÞ. We have revised the estimate of systematic error on the polarization rotation angle from the two-year analysis by comparing multiple calibration methods. We also account for the (negligible) impact of measured beam systematic effects. We investigate the polarization rotation for the BICEP1 100 GHz and 150 GHz bands separately to investigate theoretical models that produce frequency-dependent cosmic birefringence. We find no evidence in the data supporting either of these models or Faraday rotation of the CMB polarization by the Milky Way galaxy's magnetic field. If we assume that there is no cosmic birefringence, we can use * jkaufman@physics.ucsd.edu PHYSICAL REVIEW D 89, 062006 (2014) 1550-7998=2014=89(6)=062006 (11) 062006-1 © 2014 American Physical Society the TB and EB spectra to calibrate detector polarization orientations, thus reducing bias of the cosmological B-mode spectrum from leaked E-modes due to possible polarization orientation miscalibration. After applying this "self-calibration" process, we find that the upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio decreases slightly, from r < 0.70 to r < 0.65 at 95% confidence.

The extragalactic background, based on absolute measurements reported by DIRBE and IRTS at 1.2 and 2.2 µm, exceeds the brightness derived from galaxy counts by up to a factor 5. Furthermore, both DIRBE and the IRTS report fluctuations in the near-infrared sky brightness that appear to have an extra-galactic origin, but are larger than expected from local (z = 1-3) galaxies. These observations have led to speculation that a new class of high-mass stars or mini-quasars may dominate primordial star formation at high-redshift (z ∼ 10 − 20), which, in order to explain the excess in the near-infrared background, must be highly luminous but produce a limited amount of metals and X-ray photons. Regardless of the nature of the sources, if a significant component of the near-infrared background comes from first-light galaxies, theoretical models generically predict a prominent near-infrared spectral feature from the redshifted Lyman cutoff, and a distinctive fluctuation power spectrum.We are developing a rocket-borne instrument (the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment, or CIBER) to search for signatures of primordial galaxy formation in the cosmic near-infrared extra-galactic background. CIBER consists of a widefield two-color camera, a low-resolution absolute spectrometer, and a high-resolution narrow-band imaging spectrometer.The cameras will search for spatial fluctuations in the background on angular scales from 7 ′′ to 2 • , where a first-light galaxy signature is expected to peak, over a range of angular scales poorly covered by previous experiments. CIBER will determine if the fluctuations reported by the IRTS arise from first-light galaxies or have a local origin. In a short rocket flight CIBER has sensitivity to probe fluctuations