B-BOP: the SPICA imaging polarimeter

Abstract

We present the B-BOP instrument, a polarimetric camera on board the future ESA-JAXA SPICA far-infrared space observatory. B-BOP will allow the study of the magnetic field in various astrophysical environments thanks to its unprecedented ability to measure the linear polarization of the submillimeter light. The maps produced by B-BOP will contain not only information on total power, but also on the degree and the angle of polarization, simultaneously in three spectral bands (70, 200 and 350 microns). The B-BOP detectors are ultra-sensitive silicon bolometers that are intrinsically sensitive to polarization. Their NEP is close to 10E -18 W/sqrt(Hz). We will present the optical and thermal architectures of the instrument, we will detail the bolometer design and we will show the expected performances of the instrument based on preliminary lab work.

Tuneable Spectrometer for Submillimeter Astronomy Based on Silicon Fabry–Perot, Preliminary Results

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We are studying and developing high performance spectroscopy solutions in silicon technology in the framework of the instrumental developments around the B-BOP bolometer arrays [1] and in the continuity of the former developments of the Herschel space telescope instruments and in particular its PACS instrument [2]. The integration of multi-wavelength spectroscopic capabilities close to the array of a cooled bolometer would make it possible to detect the interstellar medium (ISM) continuum by scanning and to trace its evolution in particular by the detection of characteristic lines such as the cooling line [CII] at 158µm.In this paper, we present the rst concept under development and the preliminary results obtained in our cryogenic optical test bench.

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