The Jodcast October 2025
Oct 1, 2025
Join Prof Michael Brown, a leading astrophysicist from the Jodrell Bank Centre, and Dr Katie Harrington, an expert in CMB instrumentation, as they dive into the groundbreaking Simons Observatory project. They discuss how the observatory will enhance our understanding of the universe's infancy and tackle challenges in detecting primordial B-mode polarization. Harrington shares insights on testing equipment and the meticulous calibration needed for this ambitious telescope. Get ready to explore the cosmos like never before!
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Simons Observatory: A Leap In CMB Capability
- Simons Observatory is a next-generation CMB array of multiple telescopes in the Atacama Desert enabling much higher sensitivity than past experiments.
- Its goals include probing the early universe, dark matter, dark energy, neutrinos, and opening a new transient millimetre window.
Detector Count Scales Sensitivity Dramatically
- SO will deploy roughly 120,000 detectors versus ~100 on Planck, delivering vastly higher sensitivity through massive detector scaling.
- That scale enables much tighter constraints on early-universe physics and faint polarization signals.
B‑Modes Probe Primordial Gravitational Waves
- The primary cosmology target is large-scale B-mode polarization that would signal primordial gravitational waves from inflation.
- Detecting or constraining B-modes narrows competing models for the origin of the universe's initial fluctuations.