South Pole Telescope

South Pole Telescope
The South Pole Telescope in November 2009
Alternative namesSPT Edit this on Wikidata
Part ofAmundsen–Scott South Pole Station
Event Horizon Telescope Edit this on Wikidata
Location(s)South Pole, Antarctic Treaty area
Coordinates89°59′22″S 45°00′00″W / 89.9894°S 45°W / -89.9894; -45 Edit this at Wikidata
Altitude2.8 km (9,200 ft)[1] Edit this at Wikidata
BuiltNovember 2006–February 2007 (November 2006–February 2007) [2] Edit this at Wikidata
First light16 February 2007 Edit this on Wikidata
Telescope stylecosmic microwave background experiment
Gregorian telescope
radio telescope Edit this on Wikidata[3]
Diameter10.0 m (32 ft 10 in)[3][4] Edit this at Wikidata
Secondary diameter1 m (3 ft 3 in) Edit this at Wikidata
Mass280 t (280,000 kg)[1] Edit this at Wikidata
Angular resolution1 arcminute Edit this on Wikidata
Collecting area78.5 m2 (845 sq ft) Edit this at Wikidata
Mountingaltazimuth mount Edit this on Wikidata[3]
ReplacedAntarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory Edit this on Wikidata
Websitepole.uchicago.edu Edit this at Wikidata
South Pole Telescope is located in Antarctica
South Pole Telescope
Location of South Pole Telescope
  Related media on Commons

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10-metre (390 in) diameter telescope located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. The telescope is designed for observations in the microwave, millimeter-wave, and submillimeter-wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, with the particular design goal of measuring the faint, diffuse emission from the cosmic microwave background (CMB).[5] Key results include a wide and deep survey of discovering hundreds of clusters of galaxies using the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect, a sensitive 5 arcminute CMB power spectrum survey, and the first detection of B-mode polarized CMB.

The first major survey with the SPT—designed to find distant, massive, clusters of galaxies through their interaction with the CMB, with the goal of constraining the dark energy equation of state—was completed in October 2011. In early 2012, a new camera (SPTpol) was installed on the SPT with even greater sensitivity and the capability to measure the polarization of incoming light. This camera operated from 2012–2016 and was used to make unprecedentedly deep high-resolution maps of hundreds of square degrees of the Southern sky. In 2017, the third-generation camera SPT-3G was installed on the telescope, providing nearly an order-of-magnitude increase in detectors in the focal plane.[6]

The SPT collaboration is made up of over a dozen (mostly North American) institutions, including the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, Harvard/Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the University of Colorado Boulder, McGill University, Michigan State University, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Davis, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.[citation needed]

  1. ^ a b "South Pole Telescope eyes birth of first massive galaxies". United States Antarctic Program. September 14, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  2. ^ "South Pole Telescope Public Pages". Retrieved June 21, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c "SPT instrumentation". Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  4. ^ "Telescope Optics". South Pole Telescope. Retrieved April 5, 2017.
  5. ^ J. E. Carlstrom; P. A. R. Ade; K. A. Aird; et al. (May 2011). "The 10 Meter South Pole Telescope". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 123 (903): 568–581. arXiv:0907.4445. Bibcode:2011PASP..123..568C. doi:10.1086/659879. ISSN 0004-6280. Wikidata Q56603073.
  6. ^ Montgomery, Joshua; Ade, Peter A. R.; Ahmed, Zeeshan; Anderes, Ethan; Anderson, Adam J.; Archipley, Melanie A.; Avva, Jessica S.; Aylor, Kevin; Balkenhol, Lennart; Barry, Peter S.; Thakur, Ritoban B.; Benabed, Karim; Bender, Amy N.; Benson, Bradford A.; Bianchini, Federico (January 2022). "Performance and characterization of the SPT-3G digital frequency-domain multiplexed readout system using an improved noise and crosstalk model". Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems. 8 (1): 014001. arXiv:2103.16017. doi:10.1117/1.JATIS.8.1.014001. ISSN 2329-4124.