A Polarization Modulator Unit for the Mid- and High-Frequency Telescopes of the LiteBIRD mission

The LiteBIRD mission is a JAXA strategic L-class mission for all sky CMB surveys which will be launched in the 2020s. The main target of the mission is the detection of primordial gravitational waves with a sensitivity ofthe tensor-to-scalar ratio {\delta}r <0.001. The polarization modulator unit (PMU) represents a critical and powerful component to suppress 1/f noise contribution and mitigate systematic uncertainties induced by detector gain drift, both for the high-frequency telescope (HFT) and for the mid-frequency telescope (MFT). Each PMUs based on a continuously-rotating transmissive half-wave plate (HWP) held by a superconducting magnetic bearing in a 5K environment. In this proceeding we will present the design and expected performance of the LiteBIRD PMUs and testing performed on every PMU subsystem with a room-temperature rotating disk used as a stand-in for the cryogenic HWP rotor.
Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, SPIE Proceeding no. 11443-282