This conference presentation was prepared for the Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy XI conference at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2022.
The Simons Observatory (SO) will be a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment with three small-aperture telescopes (SATs) and one large-aperture telescope (LAT), which will observe from the Atacama Desert in Chile. In total, SO will field over 60,000 transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers in six spectral bands centered between 27 and 280 GHz in order to achieve the sensitivity necessary to measure or constrain numerous cosmological quantities. The SATs are optimized for a primordial gravitational wave signal in a parity odd polarization power spectrum at a large angular scale. We will present the latest status of the SAT development.
KEYWORDS: Observatories, Data acquisition, Telescopes, Microwave radiation, Control systems design, Control systems, Sensors, Bolometers, Optical instrument design, Distributed computing
The Simons Observatory (SO) will be a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey
experiment with three small-aperture telescopes and one large-aperture
telescope, which will observe from the Atacama Desert in Chile. In total, SO
will field over 60,000 transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers in six spectral
bands centered between 27 and 280 GHz in order to achieve the sensitivity
necessary to measure or constrain numerous cosmological quantities, as outlined
in The Simons Observatory Collaboration et al. (2019). To achieve these goals
we have built an open-sourced platform, called OCS (Observatory Control
System), which orchestrates distributed hardware systems. We provide an
overview of the SO software and computer infrastructure.
Ground-based observatories across a wide range of wavelengths implement cryogenic cooling techniques to increase the sensitivity of cameras and enable low temperature receiver technologies. Commercial pulse tube cryocoolers (PTCs) are frequently used to provide 40 K and 4 K stages as thermal shells in cameras. However, PTC operation is dependent on gravity, giving rise to changes in cooling capacity over the operational tilt range of pointed telescopes. We present a study of the performance of a PTC designed to provide a cooling capacity of 2.0 W at 4.2 K and 55 W at 45 K (Cryomech PT420-RM) from 0 to 55 degrees away from vertical to probe capacity as a function of angle over a set of realistic thermal loading conditions. We also discuss the design implications for current and future cryogenic cameras.
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