Cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics: studying inflation, dark energy, dark matter, neutrinos, galaxy clusters, and galaxy evolution using cosmic microwave background (CMB) and sub-millimeter measurements. Detector arrays and applied superconductivity: low-temperature detector arrays, superconducting detectors, transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers, SQUID measurement systems, device physics, sub-Kelvin refrigeration. Astronomical optics and receivers: optics design, optical coatings, material properties, cryogenic instruments.
ACTPol and Advanced ACTPol : Two phases of polarization-sensitive measurements using the 6-meter Atacama Cosmology Telescope (photo above) to probe inflation, neutrinos, early dark enegy, and galaxy clusters via the small angular scale CMB polarization. Initial ACTPol observations began in 2013. Advanced ACTPol observations ran from 2016-2022.
CCAT Observatory: (previously known as CCAT-prime) Our new paradigm for the CCAT Observatory is based on the high-throughput 6-meter aperture Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), which evolved from designs described in Niemack (2016) and Parshley et al. (2018)
Simons Observatory: The ACT and Simons Array teams have joined to develop this novel CMB observatory with multiple telescopes in Chile, and in 2023 Advanced Simons Observatory was funded!
NIST Quantum Sensors: Developing CMB polarimenters, microwave detectors, and SQUID multiplexing techniques for readout of large superconducting detector arrays
Atacama B-mode Search: An instrument with approximately 1/2 degree resolution to probe inflation via the large scale CMB polarization
BFORE (the B-mode Foreground Experiment): A proposed NASA balloon-borne observatory to measure the high-frequency foregrounds contaminating probes of large-angular-scale B-modes from inflation.
DeLITE (the DeLensing Inflation by Tomography Experiment): A proposed balloon-borne observatory to make a high signal-to-noise measurement of CMB gravitational lensing, enabling a sensitive search for "the smoking gun of inflation" - the signature of primordial inflationary gravity waves in the CMB polarization
SCUBA-2: A sub-millimeter instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii with the largest arrays of superconducting detectors in the world (~10,000 detectors total, operating at 450 and 850 microns).
SPTPol: A new receiver to measure CMB polarization on the 10-meter South Pole Telescope
Truce Collaboration: Developing feedhorn-coupled superconducting TES polarimeter arrays for CMB research
350 GHz remote human imager: A millimeter-wave security video imaging system using transition-edge sensor detectors