Search

We present measurements of large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) E-mode polarization from the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) 90 GHz data. Using 115 det-yr of observations collected through 2024 with a variable-delay polarization modulator, we achieved a polarization sensitivity of $78\,\mathrm{\mu K\,arcmin}$, comparable to Planck at similar frequencies (100 and 143 GHz). The analysis demonstrates effective mitigation of systematic errors and addresses challenges to large-angular-scale power recovery posed by time-domain filtering in maximum-likelihood map-making. A novel implementation of the pixel-space transfer matrix is introduced, which enables efficient filtering simulations and bias correction in the power spectrum using the quadratic cross-spectrum estimator. Overall, we achieved an unbiased time-domain filtering correction to recover the largest angular scale polarization, with the only power deficit, arising from map-making non-linearity, being characterized as less than $3\%$. Through cross-correlation with Planck, we detected the cosmic reionization at $99.4\%$ significance and measured the reionization optical depth $\tau=0.053^{+0.018}_{-0.019}$, marking the first ground-based attempt at such a measurement. At intermediate angular scales ($\ell>30$), our results, both independently and in cross-correlation with Planck, remain fully consistent with Planck's measurements., Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures, 3 tables; submitted to ApJ

We present the in-lab and on-sky performance for the upgraded 90 GHz focal plane of the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), which had four of its seven detector wafers updated during the austral winter of 2022. The update aimed to improve the transition-edge-sensor (TES) stability and bias range and to realize the high optical efficiency of the sensor design. Modifications included revised circuit terminations, electrical contact between the TES superconductor and the normal metal providing the bulk of the bolometer's heat capacity, and additional filtering on the TES bias lines. The upgrade was successful: 94% of detectors are stable down to 15% of the normal resistance, providing a wide overlapping range of bias voltages for all TESs on a wafer. The median telescope efficiency improved from $0.42^{+0.15}_{-0.22}$ to $0.60^{+0.10}_{-0.32}$ (68% quantiles). For the four upgraded wafers alone, median telescope efficiency increased to $0.65^{+0.06}_{-0.06}$. Given our efficiency estimate for the receiver optics, this telescope efficiency implies a detector efficiency exceeding $0.90$. The overall noise-equivalent temperature of the 90 GHz focal plane improved from 19 $\mu$K$\sqrt{s}$ to 11.3 $\mu$K$\sqrt{s}$., Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures.Submitted to ApJS

Millimeter-wave refracting telescopes targeting the degree-scale structure of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have recently grown to diffraction-limited apertures of over 0.5 meters. These instruments are entirely housed in vacuum cryostats to support their sub-kelvin bolometric detectors and to minimize radiative loading from thermal emission due to absorption loss in their transmissive optical elements. The large vacuum window is the only optical element in the system at ambient temperature, and therefore minimizing loss in the window is crucial for maximizing detector sensitivity. This motivates the use of low-loss polymer materials and a window as thin as practicable. However, the window must simultaneously meet the requirement to keep sufficient vacuum, and therefore must limit gas permeation and remain mechanically robust against catastrophic failure under pressure. We report on the development of extremely thin composite polyethylene window technology that meets these goals. Two windows have been deployed for two full observing seasons on the BICEP3 and BA150 CMB telescopes at the South Pole. On BICEP3, the window has demonstrated a 6% improvement in detector sensitivity., Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables

We present frb-voe, a publicly available software package that enables radio observatories to broadcast fast radio burst (FRB) alerts to subscribers through low-latency virtual observatory events (VOEvents). We describe a use-case of frb-voe by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Collaboration, which has broadcast thousands of FRB alerts to subscribers worldwide. Using this service, observers have daily opportunities to conduct rapid multi-wavelength follow-up observations of new FRB sources. Alerts are distributed as machine-readable reports and as emails containing FRB metadata, and are available to the public within approximately 13 seconds of detection. A sortable database and a downloadable JSON file containing FRB metadata from all broadcast alerts can be found on the CHIME/FRB public webpage. The frb-voe service also provides users with the ability to retrieve FRB names from the Transient Name Server (TNS) through the frb-voe client user interface (CLI). The frb-voe service can act as a foundation on which any observatory that detects FRBs can build its own VOEvent broadcasting service to contribute to the coordinated multi-wavelength follow-up of astrophysical transients., Comment: Submitted to The Astronomical Journal

We use a custom-made calibrator to measure individual detectors' polarization angles of BICEP3, a small aperture telescope observing the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at 95GHz from the South Pole. We describe our calibration strategy and the statistical and systematic uncertainties associated with the measurement. We reach an unprecedented precision for such measurement on a CMB experiment, with a repeatability for each detector pair of $0.02\deg$. We show that the relative angles measured using this method are in excellent agreement with those extracted from CMB data. Because the absolute measurement is currently limited by a systematic uncertainty, we do not derive cosmic birefringence constraints from BICEP3 data in this work. Rather, we forecast the sensitivity of BICEP3 sky maps for such analysis. We investigate the relative contributions of instrument noise, lensing, and dust, as well as astrophysical and instrumental systematics. We also explore the constraining power of different angle estimators, depending on analysis choices. We establish that the BICEP3 2-year dataset (2017--2018) has an on-sky sensitivity to the cosmic birefringence angle of $\sigma = 0.078\deg$, which could be improved to $\sigma = 0.055\deg$ by adding all of the existing BICEP3 data (through 2023). Furthermore, we emphasize the possibility of using the BICEP3 sky patch as a polarization calibration source for CMB experiments, which with the present data could reach a precision of $0.035\deg$. Finally, in the context of inflation searches, we investigate the impact of detector-to-detector variations in polarization angles as they may bias the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We show that while the effect is expected to remain subdominant to other sources of systematic uncertainty, it can be reliably calibrated using polarization angle measurements such as the ones we present in this paper., Comment: 29 Pages, 17 Figures, 6 Tables, as submitted to PRD

The BICEP3 and BICEP Array polarimeters are small-aperture refracting telescopes located at the South Pole designed to measure primordial gravitational wave signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization, predicted by inflation. Constraining the inflationary signal requires not only excellent sensitivity, but also careful control of instrumental systematics. Both instruments use antenna-coupled orthogonally polarized detector pairs, and the polarized sky signal is reconstructed by taking the difference in each detector pair. As a result, the differential response between detectors within a pair becomes an important systematic effect we must control. Additionally, mapping the intensity and polarization response in regions away from the main beam can inform how sidelobe levels affect CMB measurements. Extensive calibration measurements are taken in situ every austral summer for control of instrumental systematics and instrument characterisation. In this work, we detail the set of beam calibration measurements that we conduct on the BICEP receivers, from deep measurements of main beam response to polarized beam response and sidelobe mapping. We discuss the impact of these measurements for instrumental systematics studies and design choices for future CMB receivers., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, Proceedings paper SPIE 2024

Measurements of B-mode polarization in the CMB sourced from primordial gravitational waves would provide information on the energy scale of inflation and its potential form. To achieve these goals, one must carefully characterize the Galactic foregrounds, which can be distinguished from the CMB by conducting measurements at multiple frequencies. BICEP Array is the latest-generation multi-frequency instrument of the BICEP/Keck program, which specifically targets degree-scale primordial B-modes in the CMB. In its final configuration, this telescope will consist of four small-aperture receivers, spanning frequency bands from 30 to 270 GHz. The 220/270 GHz receiver designed to characterize Galactic dust is currently undergoing commissioning at Stanford University and is scheduled to deploy to the South Pole during the 2024--2025 austral summer. Here, we will provide an overview of this high-frequency receiver and discuss the integration status and test results as it is being commissioned.

Future millimeter wavelength experiments aim to both increase aperture diameters and broaden bandwidths to increase the sensitivity of the receivers. These changes produce a challenging anti-reflection (AR) design problem for refracting and transmissive optics. The higher frequency plastic optics require consistently thin polymer coats across a wide area, while wider bandwidths require multilayer designs. We present multilayer AR coats for plastic optics of the high frequency BICEP Array receiver (200-300 GHz) utilizing an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) membrane, layered and compressively heat-bonded to itself. This process allows for a range of densities (from 0.3g/cc to 1g/cc) and thicknesses (>0.05mm) over a wide radius (33cm), opening the parameter space of potential AR coats in interesting directions. The layered ePTFE membrane has been combined with other polymer layers to produce band average reflections between 0.2% and 0.6% on high density polyethylene and a thin high modulus polyethylene window, respectively.

Front-end polarization modulation enables improved polarization measurement stability by modulating the targeted signal above the low-frequency $1/f$ drifts associated with atmospheric and instrumental instabilities and diminishes the impact of instrumental polarization. In this work, we present the design and characterization of a new 60-cm diameter Reflective Half-Wave Plate (RHWP) polarization modulator for the 90 GHz band telescope of the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) project. The RHWP consists of an array of parallel wires (diameter $50~\mathrm{\mu m}$, $175~\mathrm{\mu m}$ pitch) positioned $0.88~\mathrm{mm}$ from an aluminum mirror. In lab tests, it was confirmed that the wire resonance frequency ($f_\mathrm{res}$) profile is consistent with the target, $139~\mathrm{Hz}

The search for the polarized imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as direct evidence of cosmic inflation requires exquisite sensitivity and control over systematics. The next-generation CMB-S4 project intends to improve upon current-generation experiments by deploying a significantly greater number of highly-sensitive detectors, combined with refined instrument components based on designs from field-proven instruments. The Precursor Small Aperture Telescope (PreSAT) is envisioned as an early step to this next generation, which will test prototype CMB-S4 components and technologies within an existing BICEP Array receiver, with the aim of enabling full-stack laboratory testing and early risk retirement, along with direct correlation of laboratory component-level performance measurements with deployed system performance. The instrument will utilize new 95/155GHz dichroic dual-linear-polarization prototype detectors developed for CMB-S4, cooled to 100mK via the installation of an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator, along with a prototype readout chain and prototype optics manufactured with wide-band anti-reflection coatings. The experience gained by integrating, deploying, and calibrating PreSAT will also help inform planning for CMB-S4 small aperture telescope commissioning, calibration, and operations well in advance of the fabrication of CMB-S4 production hardware., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proc. SPIE

Understanding the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has become the main science driver of recent dedicated FRB surveys. Between July 2019 and February 2022, we carried out ALERT, an FRB survey at 1370 MHz using the Apertif instrument installed at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). Here we report the detection of 18 new FRBs, and we study the properties of the entire 24 burst sample detected during the survey. For five bursts, we identify host galaxy candidates with >50% probability association. We observe an average linear polarisation fraction of $\sim$43% and an average circular polarisation fraction consistent with 0%. A third of the FRBs display multiple components. The sample next reveals a population of highly scattered bursts, which is most likely to have been produced in the immediate circumburst environment. Furthermore, two FRBs show evidence for high rotation measures, reaching |RM|>$10^3$ rad m$^{-2}$ in the source reference frames. Together, the scattering and rotation measures ALERT finds prove that a large fraction of FRBs are embedded in complex media such as star forming regions or supernova remnants. Through the discovery of the third most dispersed FRB so far, we show that one-off FRBs can emit at frequencies in excess of 6 GHz. Finally, we determine an FRB all-sky rate of $459^{+208}_{-155}$ sky$^{-1}$ day$^{-1}$ above a fluence limit of 4.1 Jy ms, and a fluence cumulative distribution with a power law index $\gamma=-1.23\pm0.06\pm0.2$, which is roughly consistent with the Euclidean Universe predictions. Through the high resolution in time, frequency, polarisation and localisation that ALERT featured, we were able to determine the morphological complexity, polarisation, local scattering and magnetic environment, and high-frequency luminosity of FRBs. We find all these strongly resemble those seen in young, energetic, highly magnetised neutron stars., Comment: 40 pages (including 11 of appendix), 37 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

The BICEP/$\textit{Keck}$ (BK) series of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments has, over the past decade and a half, produced a series of field-leading constraints on cosmic inflation via measurements of the "B-mode" polarization of the CMB. Primordial B modes are directly tied to the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves (PGW), their strength parameterized by the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, and thus the energy scale of inflation. Having set the most sensitive constraints to-date on $r$, $\sigma(r)=0.009$ ($r_{0.05}<0.036, 95\%$ C.L.) using data through the 2018 observing season ("BK18"), the BICEP/$\textit{Keck}$ program has continued to improve its dataset in the years since. We give a brief overview of the BK program and the "BK18" result before discussing the program's ongoing efforts, including the deployment and performance of the $\textit{Keck Array}$'s successor instrument, BICEP Array, improvements to data processing and internal consistency testing, new techniques such as delensing, and how those will ultimately serve to allow BK reach $\sigma(r) \lesssim 0.003$ using data through the 2027 observing season., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to the 2024 Cosmology session of the 58th Rencontres de Moriond

Improved polarization measurements at frequencies below 70 GHz with degree-level angular resolution are crucial for advancing our understanding of the Galactic synchrotron radiation and the potential polarized anomalous microwave emission and ultimately benefiting the detection of primordial $B$ modes. In this study, we present sensitivity-improved 40 GHz polarization maps obtained by combining the CLASS 40 GHz and WMAP $Q$-band data through a weighted average in the harmonic domain. The decision to include WMAP $Q$-band data stems from similarities in the bandpasses. Leveraging the accurate large-scale measurements from WMAP $Q$ band and the high-sensitivity information from CLASS 40 GHz band at intermediate scales, the noise level at $\ell\in[30, 100]$ is reduced by a factor of $2-3$ in the map space. A pixel domain analysis of the polarized synchrotron spectral index ($\beta_s$) using WMAP $K$ band and the combined maps (mean and 16/84th percentile across the $\beta_s$ map: $-3.08_{-0.20}^{+0.20}$) reveals a stronger preference for spatial variation (PTE for a uniform $\beta_s$ hypothesis smaller than 0.001) than the results obtained using WMAP $K$ and $Ka$ bands ($-3.08_{-0.14}^{+0.14}$). The cross-power spectra of the combined maps follow the same trend as other low-frequency data, and validation through simulations indicates negligible bias introduced by the combination method (sub-percent level in the power spectra). The products of this work are publicly available on $\mathtt{LAMBDA}$., Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

We used broadband local dielectric spectroscopy (BLDS), an electric force microscopy technique, to make non-contact measurements of conductivity in the dark and under illumination of PM6:Y6 and Y6 prepared on ITO and PEDOT:PSS/ITO. Over a range of illumination intensities, BLDS spectra were acquired and fit to an impedance model of the tip-sample interaction to obtain a sample resistance and capacitance. By comparing two descriptions of cantilever friction, an impedance model and a microscopic model, we connected the sample resistance inferred from impedance modeling to a microscopic sample conductivity. A charge recombination rate was estimated from plots of the conductivity versus light intensity and found to be sub-Langevin. The dark conductivity was orders of magnitude higher than expected from Fermi-level equilibration of the PM6:Y6 with the substrate, suggesting that dark carriers may be a source of open-circuit voltage loss in PM6:Y6.

Localizing fast radio bursts (FRBs) to their host galaxies is an essential step to better understanding their origins and using them as cosmic probes. The CHIME/FRB Outrigger program aims to add VLBI-localization capabilities to CHIME, such that FRBs may be localized to tens of milliarcsecond precision at the time of their discovery, more than sufficient for host galaxy identification. The first-built outrigger telescope is KKO, located 66 kilometers west of CHIME. Cross-correlating KKO with CHIME can achieve arcsecond-scale localization in right ascension while avoiding the worst effects of the ionosphere. This paper presents measurements of KKO's performance throughout its commissioning phase, as well as a summary of its design and function. We demonstrate KKO's capabilities as a standalone instrument by producing full-sky images, mapping the angular and frequency structure of the primary beam, and measuring feed positions. To demonstrate the localization capabilities of the CHIME -- KKO baseline, we collected five separate observations each for a set of twenty bright pulsars, and aimed to measure their positions to within 5~arcseconds. All of these pulses were successfully localized to within this specification. The next two outriggers are expected to be commissioned in 2024, and will enable subarcsecond localizations for approximately hundreds of FRBs each year., Comment: 41 pages, 17 figures

We present a 400-800 MHz polarimetric analysis of 128 non-repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) from the first CHIME/FRB baseband catalog, increasing the total number of FRB sources with polarization properties by a factor of ~3. 89 FRBs have >6${\sigma}$ linearly polarized detections, 29 FRBs fall below this significance threshold and are deemed linearly unpolarized, and for 10 FRBs the polarization data are contaminated by instrumental polarization. For the 89 polarized FRBs, we find Faraday rotation measure (RM) amplitudes, after subtracting approximate Milky Way contributions, in the range 0.5-1160 rad m$^{-2}$ with a median of 53.8 rad m$^{-2}$. Most non-repeating FRBs in our sample have RMs consistent with Milky Way-like host galaxies and their linear polarization fractions range from <10% to 100% with a median of 63%. We see marginal evidence that non-repeating FRBs have more constraining lower limits than repeating FRBs for the host electron-density-weighted line-of-sight magnetic field strength. We classify the non-repeating FRB polarization position angle (PA) profiles into four archetypes: (i) single component with constant PA (57% of the sample), (ii) single component with variable PA (10%), (iii) multiple components with a single constant PA (22%), and (iv) multiple components with different or variable PAs (11%). We see no evidence for population-wide frequency-dependent depolarization and, therefore, the spread in the distribution of fractional linear polarization is likely intrinsic to the FRB emission mechanism. Finally, we present a novel method to derive redshift lower limits for polarized FRBs without host galaxy identification and test this method on 20 FRBs with independently measured redshifts., Comment: 44 pages, 18 figures, accepted to ApJ

We present the discovery of twelve thus far non-repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources, detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope. These sources were selected from a database comprising of order $10^3$ CHIME/FRB full-array raw voltage data recordings, based on their exceptionally high brightness and complex morphology. Our study examines the time-frequency characteristics of these bursts, including drifting, microstructure, and periodicities. The events in this sample display a variety of unique drifting phenomenologies that deviate from the linear negative drifting phenomenon seen in many repeating FRBs, and motivate a possible new framework for classifying drifting archetypes. Additionally, we detect microstructure features of duration $\lesssim$ 50 $\mu s$ in seven events, with some as narrow as $\approx$ 7 $\mu s$. We find no evidence of significant periodicities. Furthermore, we report the polarization characteristics of seven events, including their polarization fractions and Faraday rotation measures (RMs). The observed $|\mathrm{RM}|$ values span a wide range of $17.24(2)$ - $328.06(2) \mathrm{~rad~m}^{-2}$, with linear polarization fractions between $0.340(1)$ - $0.946(3)$. The morphological properties of the bursts in our sample appear broadly consistent with predictions from both relativistic shock and magnetospheric models of FRB emission, as well as propagation through discrete ionized plasma structures. We address these models and discuss how they can be tested using our improved understanding of morphological archetypes., Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, submitted to ApJ, comments appreciated

In 2021, a catalog of 536 fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope was released by the CHIME/FRB Collaboration. This large collection of bursts, observed with a single instrument and uniform selection effects, has advanced our understanding of the FRB population. Here we update the results for 140 of these FRBs for which channelized raw voltage ('baseband') data are available. With the voltages measured by the telescope's antennas, it is possible to maximize the telescope sensitivity in any direction within the primary beam, an operation called 'beamforming'. This allows us to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the bursts and to localize them to sub-arcminute precision. The improved localization is also used to correct the beam response of the instrument and to measure fluxes and fluences with a ~10% uncertainty. Additionally, the time resolution is increased by three orders of magnitude relative to that in the first CHIME/FRB catalog, and, applying coherent dedispersion, burst morphologies can be studied in detail. Polarization information is also available for the full sample of 140 FRBs, providing an unprecedented dataset to study the polarization properties of the population. We release the baseband data beamformed to the most probable position of each FRB. These data are analyzed in detail in a series of accompanying papers.

Time-Division Multiplexing is the readout architecture of choice for many ground and space experiments, as it is a very mature technology with proven outstanding low-frequency noise stability, which represents a central challenge in multiplexing. Once fully populated, each of the two BICEP Array high frequency receivers, observing at 150GHz and 220/270GHz, will have 7776 TES detectors tiled on the focal plane. The constraints set by these two receivers required a redesign of the warm readout electronics. The new version of the standard Multi Channel Electronics, developed and built at the University of British Columbia, is presented here for the first time. BICEP Array operates Time Division Multiplexing readout technology to the limits of its capabilities in terms of multiplexing rate, noise and crosstalk, and applies them in rigorously demanding scientific application requiring extreme noise performance and systematic error control. Future experiments like CMB-S4 plan to use TES bolometers with Time Division/SQUID-based readout for an even larger number of detectors., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to Journal of Low Temperature Physics

The dynamic atmosphere imposes challenges to ground-based cosmic microwave background observation, especially for measurements on large angular scales. The hydrometeors in the atmosphere, mostly in the form of clouds, scatter the ambient thermal radiation and are known to be the main linearly polarized source in the atmosphere. This scattering-induced polarization is significantly enhanced for ice clouds due to the alignment of ice crystals under gravity, which are also the most common clouds seen at the millimeter-astronomy sites at high altitudes. This work presents a multifrequency study of cloud polarization observed by the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) experiment on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, from 2016 to 2022, at the frequency bands centered around 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz. Using a machine-learning-assisted cloud classifier, we made connections between the transient polarized emission found in all four frequencies with the clouds imaged by monitoring cameras at the observing site. The polarization angles of the cloud events are found to be mostly $90^\circ$ from the local meridian, which is consistent with the presence of horizontally aligned ice crystals. The 90 and 150 GHz polarization data are consistent with a power law with a spectral index of $3.90\pm0.06$, while an excess/deficit of polarization amplitude is found at 40/220 GHz compared with a Rayleigh scattering spectrum. These results are consistent with Rayleigh-scattering-dominated cloud polarization, with possible effects from supercooled water absorption and/or Mie scattering from a population of large cloud particles that contribute to the 220 GHz polarization., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, submitted to ApJ

Measurement of the largest angular scale ($\ell < 30$) features of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization is a powerful way to constrain the optical depth to reionization and search for the signature of inflation through the detection of primordial $B$-modes. We present an analysis of maps covering 73.6\% of the sky made from the $40\,\mathrm{GHz}$ channel of the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) from 2016 August to 2022 May. Taking advantage of the measurement stability enabled by front-end polarization modulation and excellent conditions from the Atacama Desert, we show this channel achieves higher sensitivity than the analogous frequencies from satellite measurements in the range $10 < \ell < 100$. Simulations show the CLASS linear (circular) polarization maps have a white noise level of $125 \,(130)\,\mathrm{\mu K\, arcmin}$. We measure the Galaxy-masked $EE$ and $BB$ spectra of diffuse synchrotron radiation and compare to space-based measurements at similar frequencies. In combination with external data, we expand measurements of the spatial variations of the synchrotron spectral energy density (SED) to include new sky regions and measure the diffuse SED in the harmonic domain. We place a new upper limit on a background of circular polarization in the range $5 < \ell < 125$ with the first bin showing $D_\ell < 0.023$ $\mathrm{\mu K^2_{CMB}}$ at 95\% confidence. These results establish a new standard for recovery of the largest-scale CMB polarization from the ground and signal exciting possibilities when the higher sensitivity and higher-frequency CLASS channels are included in the analysis., Comment: 38 pages, 25 figures, 6 tables. Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a telescope array that observes the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over ~75% of the sky from the Atacama Desert, Chile, at frequency bands centered near 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz. CLASS measures the large angular scale CMB polarization to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the optical depth to last scattering. This paper presents the optical characterization of the 90GHz telescope, which has been observing since July 2018. Observations of the Moon establish the pointing while dedicated observations of Jupiter are used for beam calibration. The standard deviations of the pointing error in azimuth, elevation, and boresight angle are 1.3, 2.1, and 2.0 arcminutes, respectively, over the first 3 years of observations. This corresponds to a pointing uncertainty ~7% of the beam's full width at half maximum (FWHM). The effective azimuthally-symmetrized instrument 1D beam estimated at 90 GHz has an FWHM of 0.620+/-0.003 deg and a solid angle of 138.7+/-0.6(stats.)+/-1.1(sys.) usr integrated to a radius of 4 deg. The corresponding beam window function drops to b_ell^2 = 0.93, 0.71, 0.14 at ell = 30, 100, 300, respectively. Far-sidelobes are studied using detector-centered intensity maps of the Moon and measured to be at a level of 10^-3 or below relative to the peak. The polarization angle of Tau A estimated from preliminary survey maps is 149.6+/-0.2(stats.) deg in equatorial coordinates. The instrumental temperature-to-polarization (T-to-P) leakage fraction, inferred from per-detector demodulated Jupiter scan data, has a monopole component at the level of 1.7 x 10^-3, a dipole component with an amplitude of 4.3 x 10^-3, with no evidence of quadrupolar leakage., Comment: 24 pages, 18 figures, submitted to ApJS

We present results from angular cross-correlations between select samples of CHIME/FRB repeaters and galaxies in three photometric galaxy surveys, which have shown correlations with the first CHIME/FRB catalog containing repeating and nonrepeating sources: WISE$\times$SCOS, DESI-BGS, and DESI-LRG. We find a statistically significant correlation ($p$-value $<0.001$, after accounting for look-elsewhere factors) between a sample of repeaters with extragalactic dispersion measure DM $>395$ pc cm$^{-3}$ and WISE$\times$SCOS galaxies with redshift $z>0.275$. We demonstrate that the correlation arises surprisingly because of a statistical association between FRB 20200320A (extragalactic DM $\approx550$ pc cm$^{-3}$) and a galaxy group in the same dark matter halo at redshift $z\approx0.32$. We estimate that the host halo, along with an intervening halo at redshift $z\approx0.12$, accounts for at least $\sim$$30\%$ of the extragalactic DM. Our results strongly motivate incorporating galaxy group and cluster catalogs into direct host association pipelines for FRBs with $\lesssim$$1'$ localization precision, effectively utilizing the two-point information to constrain FRB properties such as their redshift and DM distributions. In addition, we find marginal evidence for a negative correlation at 99.4% CL between a sample of repeating FRBs with baseband data (median extragalactic DM $=354$ pc cm$^{-3}$) and DESI-LRG galaxies with redshift $0.3\le z<0.45$, suggesting that the repeaters might be more prone than apparent nonrepeaters to propagation effects in FRB-galaxy correlations due to intervening free electrons over angular scales $\sim$$0\mbox{$.\!\!^\circ$}5$., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published in ApJ

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration, luminous radio transients of extragalactic origin. These events have been used to trace the baryonic structure of the Universe using their dispersion measure (DM) assuming that the contribution from host galaxies can be reliably estimated. However, contributions from the immediate environment of an FRB may dominate the observed DM, thus making redshift estimates challenging without a robust host galaxy association. Furthermore, while at least one Galactic burst has been associated with a magnetar, other localized FRBs argue against magnetars as the sole progenitor model. Precise localization within the host galaxy can discriminate between progenitor models, a major goal of the field. Until now, localizations on this spatial scale have only been carried out in follow-up observations of repeating sources. Here we demonstrate the localization of FRB 20210603A with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) on two baselines, using data collected only at the time of detection. We localize the burst to SDSS J004105.82+211331.9, an edge-on galaxy at $z\approx 0.177$, and detect recent star formation in the kiloparsec-scale vicinity of the burst. The edge-on inclination of the host galaxy allows for a unique comparison between the line of sight towards the FRB and lines of sight towards known Galactic pulsars. The DM, Faraday rotation measure (RM), and scattering suggest a progenitor coincident with the host galactic plane, strengthening the link between the environment of FRB 20210603A and the disk of its host galaxy. Single-pulse VLBI localizations of FRBs to within their host galaxies, following the one presented here, will further constrain the origins and host environments of one-off FRBs., Comment: 40 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy, changed title

FRB 20180916B is a repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) with a 16.3-day periodicity in its activity. In this study, we present morphological properties of 60 FRB 20180916B bursts detected by CHIME/FRB between 2018 August and 2021 December. We recorded raw voltage data for 45 of these bursts, enabling microseconds time resolution in some cases. We studied variation of spectro-temporal properties with time and activity phase. We find that the variation in Dispersion Measure (DM) is $\lesssim$1 pc cm$^{-3}$ and that there is burst-to-burst variation in scattering time estimates ranging from $\sim$0.16 to over 2 ms, with no discernible trend with activity phase for either property. Furthermore, we find no DM and scattering variability corresponding to the recent change in rotation measure from the source, which has implications for the immediate environment of the source. We find that FRB 20180916B has thus far shown no epochs of heightened activity as have been seen in other active repeaters by CHIME/FRB, with its burst count consistent with originating from a Poissonian process. We also observe no change in the value of the activity period over the duration of our observations and set a 1$\sigma$ upper limit of $1.5\times10^{-4}$ day day$^{-1}$ on the absolute period derivative. Finally, we discuss constraints on progenitor models yielded by our results, noting that our upper limits on changes in scattering and dispersion measure as a function of phase do not support models invoking a massive binary companion star as the origin of the 16.3-day periodicity., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures

Thiovulum majus, which is one of the fastest known bacteria, swims using hundreds of flagella. Unlike typical pusher cells, which swim in circular paths over hard surfaces, a T. majus cell turns its flagella normal to the surface. To probe the torques that stabilize this unusual fixed point, the trajectories of several thousand collisions between a T. majus cell and a wall of a quasi-two-dimensional microfluidic chamber are analyzed. Measuring the fraction of cells escaping the wall either to the left or to the right of the point of contact -- and how this probability varies with incident angle and time spent in contact with the surface -- maps the scattering dynamics onto a first passage problem. These measurements are compared to the prediction of a Fokker-Planck equation to fit the angular velocity of a cell in contact with a hard surface. This analysis reveals a bound state with a narrow basin of attraction in which cells orient their flagella normal to the surface. The escape angle predicted by matching these near field dynamics with the far field hydrodynamics is consistent with observation. We discuss the significance of these results for the ecology of T. majus and their self organization into active chiral crystals.

Our planet is roughly closed to matter, but open to energy input from the sun. However, to harness this energy, organisms must transform matter from one chemical (redox) state to another. For example, photosynthetic organisms can capture light energy by carrying out a pair of electron donor and acceptor transformations (e.g., water to oxygen, CO$_2$ to organic carbon). Closure of ecosystems to matter requires that all such transformations are ultimately balanced, i.e., other organisms must carry out corresponding reverse transformations, resulting in cycles that are coupled to each other. A sustainable closed ecosystem thus requires self-organized cycles of matter, in which every transformation has sufficient thermodynamic favorability to maintain an adequate number of organisms carrying out that process. Here, we propose a new conceptual model that explains the self-organization and emergent features of closed ecosystems. We study this model with varying levels of metabolic diversity and energy input, finding that several thermodynamic features converge across ecosystems. Specifically, irrespective of their species composition, large and metabolically diverse communities self-organize to extract roughly 10% of the maximum extractable energy, or 100 fold more than randomized communities. Moreover, distinct communities implement energy extraction in convergent ways, as indicated by strongly correlated fluxes through nutrient cycles. As the driving force from light increases, however, these features -- fluxes and total energy extraction -- become more variable across communities, indicating that energy limitation imposes tight thermodynamic constraints on collective metabolism., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a telescope array that observes the cosmic microwave background over 75\% of the sky from the Atacama Desert, Chile, at frequency bands centered near 40, 90, 150, and 220~GHz. This paper describes the CLASS data pipeline and maps for 40~GHz observations conducted from August 2016 to May 2022. We demonstrate how well the CLASS survey strategy, with rapid ($\sim10\,\mathrm{Hz}$) front-end modulation, recovers the large-scale Galactic polarization signal from the ground: the mapping transfer function recovers $\sim75$\% of $EE$, $BB$, and $VV$ power at $\ell=20$ and $\sim45$\% at $\ell=10$. We present linear and circular polarization maps over 75\% of the sky. Simulations based on the data imply the maps have a white noise level of $110\,\mathrm{\mu K\, arcmin}$ and correlated noise component rising at low-$\ell$ as $\ell^{-2.2}$. The transfer-function-corrected low-$\ell$ component is comparable to the white noise at the angular knee frequencies of $\ell\approx16$ (linear polarization) and $\ell\approx12$ (circular polarization). Finally, we present simulations of the level at which expected sources of systematic error bias the measurements, finding sub-percent bias for the $\Lambda\mathrm{CDM}$ $EE$ power spectra. Bias from $E$-to-$B$ leakage due to the data reduction pipeline and polarization angle uncertainty approaches the expected level for an $r=0.01$ $BB$ power spectrum. Improvements to the instrument calibration and the data pipeline will decrease this bias., Comment: 29 pages, 17 figures; submitted to ApJ

We report on the disk-averaged absolute brightness temperatures of Venus measured at four microwave frequency bands with the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS). We measure temperatures of 432.3 $\pm$ 2.8 K, 355.6 $\pm$ 1.3 K, 317.9 $\pm$ 1.7 K, and 294.7 $\pm$ 1.9 K for frequency bands centered at 38.8, 93.7, 147.9, and 217.5 GHz, respectively. We do not observe any dependence of the measured brightness temperatures on solar illumination for all four frequency bands. A joint analysis of our measurements with lower frequency Very Large Array (VLA) observations suggests relatively warmer ($\sim$ 7 K higher) mean atmospheric temperatures and lower abundances of microwave continuum absorbers than those inferred from prior radio occultation measurements., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, published in PSJ

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) display a confounding variety of burst properties and host galaxy associations. Repeating FRBs offer insight into the FRB population by enabling spectral, temporal and polarimetric properties to be tracked over time. Here, we report on the polarized observations of 12 repeating sources using multi-year monitoring with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) over 400-800 MHz. We observe significant RM variations from many sources in our sample, including RM changes of several hundred $\rm{rad\, m^{-2}}$ over month timescales from FRBs 20181119A, 20190303A and 20190417A, and more modest RM variability ($\rm{\Delta RM \lesssim}$ few tens rad m$^{-2}$) from FRBs 20181030A, 20190208A, 20190213B and 20190117A over equivalent timescales. Several repeaters display a frequency dependent degree of linear polarization that is consistent with depolarization via scattering. Combining our measurements of RM variations with equivalent constraints on DM variability, we estimate the average line-of-sight magnetic field strength in the local environment of each repeater. In general, repeating FRBs display RM variations that are more prevalent/extreme than those seen from radio pulsars in the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds, suggesting repeating FRBs and pulsars occupy distinct magneto-ionic environments.

We present the discovery of 25 new repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources found among CHIME/FRB events detected between 2019 September 30 and 2021 May 1. The sources were found using a new clustering algorithm that looks for multiple events co-located on the sky having similar dispersion measures (DMs). The new repeaters have DMs ranging from $\sim$220 pc cm$^{-3}$ to $\sim$1700 pc cm$^{-3}$, and include sources having exhibited as few as two bursts to as many as twelve. We report a statistically significant difference in both the DM and extragalactic DM (eDM) distributions between repeating and apparently nonrepeating sources, with repeaters having lower mean DM and eDM, and we discuss the implications. We find no clear bimodality between the repetition rates of repeaters and upper limits on repetition from apparently nonrepeating sources after correcting for sensitivity and exposure effects, although some active repeating sources stand out as anomalous. We measure the repeater fraction over time and find that it tends to an equilibrium of $2.6_{-2.6}^{+2.9}$% over our total time-on-sky thus far. We also report on 14 more sources which are promising repeating FRB candidates and which merit follow-up observations for confirmation., Comment: ApJ in press. Comments are still welcome and follow-up observations are encouraged!

We demonstrate that edge currents develop in active chiral matter -- composed of spinning disk-shaped grains with chirally arranged tilted legs confined in a circular vibrating chamber -- due to boundary shielding over a wide range of densities corresponding to a gas, fluid, and crystal. The edge currents are then shown to increasingly drive circulating bulk flows with area fraction $\phi$ due to increasing spin-coupling between neighbors mediated by frictional contacts, as percolating clusters develop. Edge currents are observed even in the dilute limit. While, at low $\phi$, the average flux vanishes except within a distance of a single particle diameter of the boundary, the penetration depth grows with increasing $\phi$ till a solid body rotation is achieved corresponding to the highest packing, where the particles are fully caged with hexagonal order and spin in phase with the entire packing. A coarse-grained model, based on the increased collisional interlocking of the particles with $\phi$ and the emergence of order, captures the observed flow fields., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a polarization-sensitive telescope array located at an altitude of 5,200 m in the Chilean Atacama Desert and designed to measure the polarized Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over large angular scales. The CLASS array is currently observing with three telescopes covering four frequency bands: one at 40 GHz (Q); one at 90 GHz (W1); and one dichroic system at 150/220 GHz (HF). During the austral winter of 2022, we upgraded the first 90 GHz telescope (W1) by replacing four of the seven focal plane modules. These new modules contain detector wafers with an updated design, aimed at improving the optical efficiency and detector stability. We present a description of the design changes and measurements of on-sky optical efficiencies derived from observations of Jupiter., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.05006

We report on improved sky localizations of thirteen repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered by CHIME/FRB via the use of interferometric techniques on channelized voltages from the telescope. These so-called 'baseband localizations' improve the localization uncertainty area presented in past studies by more than three orders of magnitude. The improved localization regions are provided for the full sample of FRBs to enable follow-up studies. The localization uncertainties, together with limits on the source distances from their dispersion measures (DMs), allow us to identify likely host galaxies for two of the FRB sources. FRB 20180814A lives in a massive passive red spiral at z~0.068 with very little indication of star formation, while FRB 20190303A resides in a merging pair of spiral galaxies at z~0.064 undergoing significant star formation. These galaxies show very different characteristics, further confirming the presence of FRB progenitors in a variety of environments even among the repeating sub-class.

We present estimates of line-of-sight distortion fields derived from the 95 GHz and 150 GHz data taken by BICEP2, BICEP3, and Keck Array up to the 2018 observing season, leading to cosmological constraints and a study of instrumental and astrophysical systematics. Cosmological constraints are derived from three of the distortion fields concerning gravitational lensing from large-scale structure, polarization rotation from magnetic fields or an axion-like field, and the screening effect of patchy reionization. We measure an amplitude of the lensing power spectrum $A_L^{\phi\phi}=0.95 \pm 0.20$. We constrain polarization rotation, expressed as the coupling constant of a Chern-Simons electromagnetic term $g_{a\gamma} \leq 2.6 \times 10^{-2}/H_I$, where $H_I$ is the inflationary Hubble parameter, and an amplitude of primordial magnetic fields smoothed over 1 Mpc $B_{1\text{Mpc}} \leq 6.6 \;\text{nG}$ at 95 GHz. We constrain the root mean square of optical-depth fluctuations in a simple "crinkly surface" model of patchy reionization, finding $A^\tau<0.19$ ($2\sigma$) for the coherence scale of $L_c=100$. We show that all of the distortion fields of the 95 GHz and 150 GHz polarization maps are consistent with simulations including lensed-$\Lambda$CDM, dust, and noise, with no evidence for instrumental systematics. In some cases, the EB and TB quadratic estimators presented here are more sensitive than our previous map-based null tests at identifying and rejecting spurious B-modes that might arise from instrumental effects. Finally, we verify that the standard deprojection filtering in the BICEP/Keck data processing is effective at removing temperature to polarization leakage., Comment: 34 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

We characterize Galactic dust filaments by correlating BICEP/Keck and Planck data with polarization templates based on neutral hydrogen (H I) observations. Dust polarization is important for both our understanding of astrophysical processes in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the search for primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In the diffuse ISM, H I is strongly correlated with the dust and partly organized into filaments that are aligned with the local magnetic field. We analyze the deep BICEP/Keck data at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, over the low-column-density region of sky where BICEP/Keck has set the best limits on primordial gravitational waves. We separate the H I emission into distinct velocity components and detect dust polarization correlated with the local Galactic H I but not with the H I associated with Magellanic Stream I. We present a robust, multifrequency detection of polarized dust emission correlated with the filamentary H I morphology template down to 95 GHz. For assessing its utility for foreground cleaning, we report that the H I morphology template correlates in B modes at a $\sim$10-65$\%$ level over the multipole range $20 < \ell < 200$ with the BICEP/Keck maps, which contain contributions from dust, CMB, and noise components. We measure the spectral index of the filamentary dust component spectral energy distribution to be $\beta = 1.54 \pm 0.13$. We find no evidence for decorrelation in this region between the filaments and the rest of the dust field or from the inclusion of dust associated with the intermediate velocity H I. Finally, we explore the morphological parameter space in the H I-based filamentary model., Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) telescope array surveys 75% of the sky from the Atacama desert in Chile at frequency bands centered near 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz. CLASS measures the largest-angular-scale CMB polarization with the aim of constraining the tensor-to-scalar ratio, measuring the optical depth to reionization to near the cosmic variance limit, and more. The CLASS Q-band (40 GHz), W-band (90 GHz), and dichroic high frequency (150/220 GHz) telescopes have been observing since June 2016, May 2018, and September 2019, respectively. On-sky optical characterization of the 40 GHz instrument has been published. Here, we present preliminary on-sky measurements of the beams at 90, 150, and 220 GHz, and pointing stability of the 90 and 150/220 GHz telescopes. The average 90, 150, and 220 GHz beams measured from dedicated observations of Jupiter have full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 0.615+/-0.019 deg, 0.378+/-0.005 deg, and 0.266+/-0.008 deg, respectively. Telescope pointing variations are within a few percent of the beam FWHM., Comment: Submitted to Proc. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation (2022)

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a polarization-sensitive telescope array located at an altitude of 5,200 m in the Chilean Atacama Desert. CLASS is designed to measure "E-mode" (even parity) and "B-mode" (odd parity) polarization patterns in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over large angular scales with the aim of improving our understanding of inflation, reionization, and dark matter. CLASS is currently observing with three telescopes covering four frequency bands: one at 40 GHz (Q); one at 90 GHz (W1); and one dichroic system at 150/220 GHz (G). In these proceedings, we discuss the updated design and in-lab characterization of new 90 GHz detectors. The new detectors include design changes to the transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometer architecture, which aim to improve stability and optical efficiency. We assembled and tested four new detector wafers, to replace four modules of the W1 focal plane. These detectors were installed into the W1 telescope, and will achieve first light in the austral winter of 2022. We present electrothermal parameters and bandpass measurements from in-lab dark and optical testing. From in-lab dark tests, we also measure a median NEP of 12.3 $\mathrm{aW\sqrt{s}}$ across all four wafers about the CLASS signal band, which is below the expected photon NEP of 32 $\mathrm{aW\sqrt{s}}$ from the field. We therefore expect the new detectors to be photon noise limited., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Proc. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022

Polarization modulation is a powerful technique to increase the stability of measurements by enabling the distinction of a polarized signal from dominant slow system drifts and unpolarized foregrounds. Furthermore, when placed as close to the sky as possible, modulation can reduce systematic errors from instrument polarization. In this work, we introduce the design and preliminary drive system laboratory performance of a new 60 cm diameter reflective half-wave plate (RHWP) polarization modulator. The wave plate consists of a wire array situated in front of a flat mirror. Using \mbox{50 $\mu$m} diameter wires with \mbox{175 $\mu$m} spacing, the wave plate will be suitable for operation in the millimeter wavelength range with flatness of the wires and parallelism to the mirror held to a small fraction of a wavelength. The presented design targets the 77--108 GHz range. Modulation is performed by a rotation of the wave plate with a custom rotary drive utilizing an actively controlled servo motor., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Proc. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a telescope array observing the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at frequency bands centered near 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz. CLASS measures the CMB polarization on the largest angular scales to constrain the inflationary tensor-to-scalar ratio and the optical depth due to reionization. To achieve the long time-scale stability necessary for this measurement from the ground, CLASS utilizes a front-end, variable-delay polarization modulator on each telescope. Here we report on the improvements in stability afforded by front-end modulation using data across all four CLASS frequencies. Across one month of modulated linear polarization data in 2021, CLASS achieved median knee frequencies of 9.1, 29.1, 20.4, and 36.4 mHz for the 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz observing bands. The knee frequencies are approximately an order of magnitude lower than achieved via CLASS pair-differencing orthogonal detector pairs without modulation., Comment: Submitted to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 Conference (AS22)

Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background rely on cryogenic instrumentation with cold detectors, readout, and optics providing the low noise performance and instrumental stability required to make more sensitive measurements. It is therefore critical to optimize all aspects of the cryogenic design to achieve the necessary performance, with low temperature components and acceptable system cooling requirements. In particular, we will focus on our use of thermal filters and cold optics, which reduce the thermal load passed along to the cryogenic stages. To test their performance, we have made a series of in situ measurements while integrating the third receiver for the BICEP Array telescope. In addition to characterizing the behavior of this receiver, these measurements continue to refine the models that are being used to inform design choices being made for future instruments., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of SPIE 2022

New experiments that target the B-mode polarization signals in the Cosmic Microwave Background require more sensitivity, more detectors, and thus larger-aperture millimeter-wavelength telescopes, than previous experiments. These larger apertures require ever larger vacuum windows to house cryogenic optics. Scaling up conventional vacuum windows, such as those made of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), require a corresponding increase in the thickness of the window material to handle the extra force from the atmospheric pressure. Thicker windows cause more transmission loss at ambient temperatures, increasing optical loading and decreasing sensitivity. We have developed the use of woven High Modulus Polyethylene (HMPE), a material 100 times stronger than HDPE, to manufacture stronger, thinner windows using a pressurized hot lamination process. We discuss the development of a specialty autoclave for generating thin laminate vacuum windows and the optical and mechanical characterization of full scale science grade windows, with the goal of developing a new window suitable for BICEP Array cryostats and for future CMB applications.

Constraining the Galactic foregrounds with multi-frequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations is an essential step towards ultimately reaching the sensitivity to measure primordial gravitational waves (PGWs), the sign of inflation after the Big-Bang that would be imprinted on the CMB. The BICEP Array telescope is a set of multi-frequency cameras designed to constrain the energy scale of inflation through CMB B-mode searches while also controlling the polarized galactic foregrounds. The lowest frequency BICEP Array receiver (BA1) has been observing from the South Pole since 2020 and provides 30 GHz and 40 GHz data to characterize the Galactic synchrotron in our CMB maps. In this paper, we present the design of the BA1 detectors and the full optical characterization of the camera including the on-sky performance at the South Pole. The paper also introduces the design challenges during the first observing season including the effect of out-of-band photons on detectors performance. It also describes the tests done to diagnose that effect and the new upgrade to minimize these photons, as well as installing more dichroic detectors during the 2022 deployment season to improve the BA1 sensitivity. We finally report background noise measurements of the detectors with the goal of having photon noise dominated detectors in both optical channels. BA1 achieves an improvement in mapping speed compared to the previous deployment season., Comment: Proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 (AS22)

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are a class of highly energetic, mostly extragalactic radio transients lasting for a few milliseconds. While over 600 FRBs have been published so far, their origins are presently unclear, with some theories for extragalactic FRBs predicting accompanying high-energy emission. In this work, we use the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Project to explore whether any FRB-like radio emission coincides in space and time with 81 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected between 2018 July 17 and 2019 July 8 by Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM. We do not find any statistically significant, coincident pairs within 3sigma of each other's spatial localization regions and within a time difference of up to one week. In addition to searching for spatial matches between known FRBs and known GRBs, we use CHIME/FRB to constrain FRB-like radio emission before, at the time of, or after the reported high-energy emission at the position of 39 GRBs. Our most constraining radio flux limits in the 400- to 800-MHz band for short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) are <50 Jy at 18.6 ks pre-high-energy emission, and <5 Jy at 28.4 ks post-high-energy emission, assuming a 10-ms radio burst width with each limit valid for 60 seconds. We use these limits to constrain models that predict FRB-like prompt radio emission before and after SGRBs. We also place limits as low as 2 Jy for long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs), but there are no strong theoretical predictions for coincident FRB-like radio emission for LGRBs., Comment: 20 pages, 5 tables, 10 figures; Submitted to ApJ

The BICEP3 Polarimeter is a small aperture, refracting telescope, dedicated to the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at 95GHz. It is designed to target degree angular scale polarization patterns, in particular the very-much-sought-after primordial B-mode signal, which is a unique signature of cosmic inflation. The polarized signal from the sky is reconstructed by differencing co-localized, orthogonally polarized superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers. In this work, we present absolute measurements of the polarization response of the detectors for more than $\sim 800$ functioning detector pairs of the BICEP3 experiment, out of a total of $\sim 1000$. We use a specifically designed Rotating Polarized Source (RPS) to measure the polarization response at multiple source and telescope boresight rotation angles, to fully map the response over 360 degrees. We present here polarization properties extracted from on-site calibration data taken in January 2022. A similar calibration campaign was performed in 2018, but we found that our constraint was dominated by systematics on the level of $\sim0.5^\circ$. After a number of improvements to the calibration set-up, we are now able to report a significantly lower level of systematic contamination. In the future, such precise measurements will be used to constrain physics beyond the standard cosmological model, namely cosmic birefringence., Comment: Submitted to: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation (AS22)

In this paper, we explore the power of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization (E-mode) data to corroborate four potential anomalies in CMB temperature data: the lack of large angular-scale correlations, the alignment of the quadrupole and octupole (Q-O), the point-parity asymmetry, and the hemispherical power asymmetry. We use CMB simulations with noise representative of three experiments -- the Planck satellite, the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), and the LiteBIRD satellite -- to test how current and future data constrain the anomalies. We find the correlation coefficients $\rho$ between temperature and E-mode estimators to be less than $0.1$, except for the point-parity asymmetry ($\rho=0.17$ for cosmic-variance-limited simulations), confirming that E-modes provide a check on the anomalies that is largely independent of temperature data. Compared to Planck component-separated CMB data (SMICA), the putative LiteBIRD survey would reduce errors on E-mode anomaly estimators by factors of $\sim 3$ for hemispherical power asymmetry and point-parity asymmetry, and by $\sim 26$ for lack of large-scale correlation. The improvement in Q-O alignment is not obvious due to large cosmic variance, but we found the ability to pin down the estimator value will be improved by a factor $\gtrsim100$. Improvements with CLASS are intermediate to these., Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. Published in ApJ

Fast Radio Bursts must be powered by uniquely energetic emission mechanisms. This requirement has eliminated a number of possible source types, but several remain. Identifying the physical nature of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) emitters arguably requires good localisation of more detections, and broadband studies enabled by real-time alerting. We here present the Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS), a supercomputing radio-telescope instrument that performs real-time FRB detection and localisation on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) interferometer. It reaches coherent-addition sensitivity over the entire field of the view of the primary dish beam. After commissioning results verified the system performed as planned, we initiated the Apertif FRB survey (ALERT). Over the first 5 weeks we observed at design sensitivity in 2019, we detected 5 new FRBs, and interferometrically localised each of these to 0.4--10 sq. arcmin. All detections are broad band and very narrow, of order 1 ms duration, and unscattered. Dispersion measures are generally high. Only through the very high time and frequency resolution of ARTS are these hard-to-find FRBs detected, producing an unbiased view of the intrinsic population properties. Most localisation regions are small enough to rule out the presence of associated persistent radio sources. Three FRBs cut through the halos of M31 and M33. We demonstrate that Apertif can localise one-off FRBs with an accuracy that maps magneto-ionic material along well-defined lines of sight. The rate of 1 every ~7 days next ensures a considerable number of new sources are detected for such study. The combination of detection rate and localisation accuracy exemplified by the 5 first ARTS FRBs thus marks a new phase in which a growing number of bursts can be used to probe our Universe., Comment: Accepted version

Fast radio burst (FRB) source 20180916B exhibits a 16.33-day periodicity in its burst activity. It is as of yet unclear what proposed mechanism produces the activity, but polarization information is a key diagnostic. Here, we report on the polarization properties of 44 bursts from FRB 20180916B detected between 2018 December and 2021 December by CHIME/FRB, the FRB project on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment. In contrast to previous observations, we find significant variations in the Faraday rotation measure (RM) of FRB 20180916B. Over the nine month period 2021 April$-$2021 December we observe an apparent secular increase in $\rm{RM}$ of $\sim 50 \; \rm{rad\, m^{-2}}$ (a fractional change of over $40\%$) that is accompanied by a possible drift of the emitting band to lower frequencies. This interval displays very little variation in the dispersion measure ($\Delta \rm{DM}\lesssim 0.8\; \rm{pc\, cm^{-3}}$) which indicates that the observed RM evolution is likely produced from coherent changes in the Faraday-active medium's magnetic field. Burst-to-burst RM variations appear unrelated to the activity cycle phase. The degree of linear polarization of our burst sample ($\gtrsim 80\%$) is consistent with the negligible depolarization expected for this source in the 400-800 MHz bandpass of CHIME. FRB 20180916B joins other repeating FRBs in displaying substantial RM variations between bursts. This is consistent with the notion that repeater progenitors may be associated with young stellar populations by their preferential occupation of dynamic magnetized environments commonly found in supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae or near high mass stellar companions.

The current and future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments fielding kilo-pixel arrays of transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers require accurate and robust gain calibration methods. We simplify and refactor the standard TES model to directly relate the detector responsivity calibration and optical time constant to the measured TES current $I$ and the applied bias current $I_{\mathrm{b}}$. The calibration method developed for the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) TES bolometer arrays relies on current versus voltage ($I$-$V$) measurements acquired daily prior to CMB observations. By binning Q-band (40GHz) $I$-$V$ measurements by optical loading, we find that the gain calibration median standard error within a bin is 0.3%. We test the accuracy of this "$I$-$V$ bin" detector calibration method by using the Moon as a photometric standard. The ratio of measured Moon amplitudes between detector pairs sharing the same feedhorn indicates a TES calibration error of 0.5%. We also find that for the CLASS Q-band TES array, calibrating the response of individual detectors based solely on the applied TES bias current accurately corrects TES gain variations across time but introduces a bias in the TES calibration from data counts to power units. Since the TES current bias value is set and recorded before every observation, this calibration method can always be applied to raw TES data and is not subject to $I$-$V$ data quality or processing errors., Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to ApJS May 2022. Published ApJS Oct 2022

The gravitational field of compact objects, such as primordial black holes, can create multiple images of background sources. For transients such as fast radio bursts (FRBs), these multiple images can be resolved in the time domain. Under certain circumstances, these images not only have similar burst morphologies but are also phase-coherent at the electric field level. With a novel dechannelization algorithm and a matched filtering technique, we search for repeated copies of the same electric field waveform in observations of FRBs detected by the FRB backend of the Canadian Hydrogen Mapping Intensity Experiment (CHIME). An interference fringe from a coherent gravitational lensing signal will appear in the time-lag domain as a statistically-significant peak in the time-lag autocorrelation function. We calibrate our statistical significance using telescope data containing no FRB signal. Our dataset consists of $\sim$100-ms long recordings of voltage data from 172 FRB events, dechannelized to 1.25-ns time resolution. This coherent search algorithm allows us to search for gravitational lensing signatures from compact objects in the mass range of $10^{-4}-10^{4} ~\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$. After ruling out an anomalous candidate due to diffractive scintillation, we find no significant detections of gravitational lensing in the 172 FRB events that have been analyzed. In a companion work [Leung, Kader+2022], we interpret the constraints on dark matter from this search., Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures