Description: Operation of ground-based or balloon-borne CMB telescopes with bolometric focal planes.
Develops cryogenic detector technology for CMB experiments. Directions: (1) TES bolometer array design and fabrication for SPT-3G and CMB-S4; (2) MKID detector development as alternative to TES for next-generation CMB focal planes; (3) low-noise SQUID multiplexed readout for large-format arrays; (4) SPT-3G science: CMB lensing, cluster SZ, B-mode polarization. Argonne joint appointment.
Experimental cosmologist building and operating CMB telescopes. Directions: (1) South Pole Telescope — PI of SPT series; SPT-3G currently mapping CMB temperature and polarization at arcminute resolution; (2) thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect mapping for galaxy cluster cosmology; (3) CMB gravitational lensing for large-scale structure; (4) CMB-S4 design and planning. Argonne joint appointment. APS and AAAS Fellow.
Develops superconducting detector and readout systems for CMB observations. Directions: (1) SQUID-multiplexed readout architecture for large TES bolometer arrays (SPT-3G, CMB-S4); (2) transition-edge sensor bolometer fabrication and characterization; (3) MKID detector development; (4) CMB-S4 instrument design. Argonne joint appointment. Deep expertise in quantum-limited cryogenic detector readout.
Develops balloon-borne and ground-based cosmic microwave background instrumentation (e.g., SPIDER, BICEP-family experiments) to search for inflationary gravitational-wave signatures.
Holzapfel develops and deploys cryogenic TES bolometer arrays with SQUID multiplexed readout for the South Pole Telescope and related cosmic microwave background experiments, pushing detector sensitivity toward the photon-noise limit for measurements of CMB anisotropy and polarization.
Jones leads the SPIDER balloon-borne CMB polarimeter (and the successor Taurus mission), building and flying large TES bolometer arrays from Antarctic long-duration balloon platforms to measure degree-scale CMB polarization with minimal atmospheric loading, and also leads SuperBIT, a near-diffraction-limited stratospheric optical telescope. Like Staggs, he is included here as an astronomy/instrumentation pivot whose science case rests on cutting-edge cryogenic detector-array sensitivity.
Kovac leads the BICEP/Keck CMB-polarization program at the South Pole, designing and deploying multiple generations of radio telescopes and cryogenic detector arrays (TES bolometers with SQUID-multiplexed readout) to search for the inflationary gravitational-wave signature in the cosmic microwave background. This is an astronomy pivot squarely enabled by quantum-limited cryogenic detector technology, matching the CMB-instrumentation branch of the quantum-sensing tree.
Kuo develops and deploys TES bolometer arrays and SQUID-multiplexed readout electronics for cosmic microwave background polarization experiments (BICEP/Keck, South Pole Telescope, CMB-S4), pairing quantum-limited cryogenic sensor design with cosmology to search for inflationary gravitational-wave signatures.
Experimental cosmologist developing next-generation CMB detector arrays. Directions: (1) CMB-S4 detector development — leading TES bolometer and MKID array design for 500,000-detector focal plane; (2) South Pole Telescope SPT-3G operations and analysis; (3) cryogenic readout electronics including SQUID multiplexing at millikelvin temperatures; (4) quantum-limited photon detection at mm/submm wavelengths. APS Fellow.
Reichardt leads Melbourne's CMB effort and is a member of SPT-3G, the third-generation South Pole Telescope camera, whose focal plane is populated by ~16,000 transition-edge sensor bolometers read out by SQUID multiplexers. His science targets are CMB lensing, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and the small-scale temperature and polarisation power spectra; the enabling technology is cryogenic quantum-limited detection. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — this is the astronomical analogue of the same problem — a detector whose noise floor is set by fundamental quantum limits rather than by the source — and TES/SQUID readout is a natural pivot for a physicist trained on pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometry, since SQUID amplification is the shared hardware. Preferred attribute present: astronomy where the quantum sensor is the enabling technology.