SO:UK - A major UK contribution to the Simons Observatory
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Giardiello S
(2024)
The Simons Observatory: impact of bandpass, polarization angle and calibration uncertainties on small-scale power spectrum analysis
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Hertig E
(2024)
The Simons Observatory: Combining cross-spectral foreground cleaning with multitracer B -mode delensing for improved constraints on inflation
in Physical Review D
| Description | SO:UK - A major UK contribution to Simons Observatory |
| Amount | £1,141,162 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/X006395/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 03/2030 |
| Description | Simons Observatory:UK technology development and demonstration |
| Amount | £875,414 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/X006379/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Title | Efficient power spectrum estimation |
| Description | NaMaster is a C library, Python module and standalone program to compute full-sky angular cross-power spectra of masked fields with arbitrary spin and an arbitrary number of known contaminants using a pseudo-Cl (aka MASTER) approach. The code also implements E/B-mode purification and is available in both full-sky and flat-sky modes. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The software is used by the wider community (both large collaborations and individual groups) for a broad range of analyses in cosmology, and has been implemented in the pipelines of the international experiments I am a member of. |
| URL | https://github.com/LSSTDESC/NaMaster |
| Description | Simons Observatory |
| Organisation | Simons Observatory |
| Country | Chile |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Oxford team members are active in both the instrumentation and data analysis aspects of SO. They lead the detector readout development for the SO:UK instruments and contribute to the early data pipeline. Alonso is the co-leader for the B-modes Analysis Working group of SO and is in charge of delivering one of the key science cases for the collaboration : constraining the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves from the properties of large-scale CMB B-modes. The wider Oxford team contribute to the foregrounds, power spectrum, Sunyaev Zel'dovich working groups. Taylor is on the Steering committee for SO:UK, Jones is on the SO:UK Instrument Management team and Alonso is the SO:UK Project Scientist. |
| Collaborator Contribution | SO combines the resources and infrastructure of two existing CMB observatories: the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the Simons Array, both located in Chile. The collaboration combines the skills of around 100 experts from more than 40 institutions around the world covering areas from instrumentation to theoretical predictions. The construction of the Observatory is funded by the Simon and Heising-Simons foundations with contributions from the US lead institutions. Initial institutional-level collaboration with Oxford began in 2016 and was later consolidated with the start of this and follow-on UKRI grants when a UK-wide collaboration (SO:UK) officially became partners in the project. The UK partners contribute across the board from instrumentation through to data analysis and theoretical predictions. |
| Impact | SO will start commissioning in 2023, with the SO:UK telescopes currently scheduled to start commissioning in 2026 onwards. |
| Start Year | 2016 |