LiteBIRD the Lite (Light) satellite for the study of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection, is a space mission for primordial cosmology and fundamental physics. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) selected LiteBIRD in May 2019 as a strategic large-class (L-class) mission, with an expected launch in the late 2020s using JAXA’s H3 rocket. LiteBIRD is planned to orbit the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2, where it will map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization over the entire sky for three years, with three telescopes in 15 frequency bands between 34 and 448 GHz, to achieve an unprecedented total sensitivity of 2.2 μK-arcmin, with a typical angular resolution of 0.5○ at 100 GHz. The primary scientific objective of LiteBIRD is to search for the signal from cosmic inflation, either making a discovery or ruling out well-motivated inflationary models. The measurements of LiteBIRD will also provide us with insight into the quantum nature of gravity and other new physics beyond the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. We provide an overview of the LiteBIRD project, including scientific objectives, mission and system requirements, operation concept, spacecraft and payload module design, expected scientific outcomes, potential design extensions and synergies with other projects. Subject Index LiteBIRD cosmic inflation, cosmic microwave background, B-mode polarization, primordial gravitational waves, quantum gravity, space telescope

Radio pulsars scintillate because their emission travels through the ionized interstellar medium along multiple paths, which interfere with each other. It has long been realized that, independent of their nature, the regions responsible for the scintillation could be used as 'interstellar lenses' to localize pulsar emission regions. Most such lenses, however, resolve emission components only marginally, limiting results to statistical inferences and detections of small positional shifts. As lenses situated close to their source offer better resolution, it should be easier to resolve emission regions of pulsars located in high-density environments such as supernova remnants or binaries in which the pulsar's companion has an ionized outflow. Here we report observations of extreme plasma lensing in the 'black widow' pulsar, B1957+20, near the phase in its 9.2-hour orbit at which its emission is eclipsed by its companion's outflow. During the lensing events, the observed radio flux is enhanced by factors of up to 70-80 at specific frequencies. The strongest events clearly resolve the emission regions: they affect the narrow main pulse and parts of the wider interpulse differently. We show that the events arise naturally from density fluctuations in the outer regions of the outflow, and we infer a resolution of our lenses that is comparable to the pulsar's radius, about 10 kilometres. Furthermore, the distinct frequency structures imparted by the lensing are reminiscent of what is observed for the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102, providing observational support for the idea that this source is observed through, and thus at times strongly magnified by, plasma lenses .

Recent developments of transition-edge sensors (TESs), based on extensive experience in ground-based experiments, have been making the sensor techniques mature enough for their application on future satellite cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments. LiteBIRD is in the most advanced phase among such future satellites, targeting its launch in Japanese Fiscal Year 2027 (2027FY) with JAXA's H3 rocket. It will accommodate more than 4000 TESs in focal planes of reflective low-frequency and refractive medium-and-high-frequency telescopes in order to detect a signature imprinted on the CMB by the primordial gravitational waves predicted in cosmic inflation. The total wide frequency coverage between 34 and 448 GHz enables us to extract such weak spiral polarization patterns through the precise subtraction of our Galaxy's foreground emission by using spectral differences among CMB and foreground signals. Telescopes are cooled down to 5 K for suppressing thermal noise and contain polarization modulators with transmissive half-wave plates at individual apertures for separating sky polarization signals from artificial polarization and for mitigating from instrumental 1/f noise. Passive cooling by using V-grooves supports active cooling with mechanical coolers as well as adiabatic demagnetization refrigerators. Sky observations from the second Sun-Earth Lagrangian point, L2, are planned for 3 years.

satellite: JAXA's new strategic L-class mission for all-sky surveys of cosmic microwave background polarization,"

The systematic offset of Gaia parallaxes has been widely reported with Gaia's second data release, and it is expected to persist in future Gaia data. In order to use Gaia parallaxes to infer distances to high precision, we develop a hierarchical probabilistic model to determine the Gaia parallax zero point offset along with the calibration of an empirical model for luminosity of red clump stars by combining astrometric and photometric measurements. Using a cross-matched sample of red clump stars from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2), we report the parallax zero point offset in DR2 to be 0 = −48±1 µas. We infer the red clump absolute magnitude to be −1.622 ± 0.004 in K s , 0.517 ± 0.004 in G, −1.019 ± 0.004 in J, and −1.516 ± 0.004 in H. The intrinsic scatter of the red clump is ∼ 0.09 mag in J, H and K s , or ∼ 0.17 mag in G. We tailor our models to accommodate more complex analyses such as investigating the variations of the parallax zero point with each source's observed magnitude, observed colour, and sky position. In particular, we find fluctuations of the zero point across the sky to be of order or less than a few 10s of µas.