The thirty gigahertz instrument receiver for the Q-U-I Joint Tenerife experiment: concept and experimental results

Enrique Villa; Juan L Cano; Jaime Cagigas; David Ortiz; Francisco J Casas; Ana R Pérez; Beatriz Aja; J Vicente Terán; Luisa de la Fuente; Eduardo Artal; Roger Hoyland; Ángel Mediavilla

doi:10.1063/1.4907015

The thirty gigahertz instrument receiver for the Q-U-I Joint Tenerife experiment: concept and experimental results

Rev Sci Instrum. 2015 Feb;86(2):024702. doi: 10.1063/1.4907015.

Affiliations

¹ Departamento Ingeniería de Comunicaciones, Universidad de Cantabria, Plaza de la Ciencia s/n, Santander 39005, Spain.
² Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Avda. Los Castros s/n, Santander 39005, Spain.
³ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea s/n, La Laguna 38205, Spain.

PMID: 25725865
DOI: 10.1063/1.4907015

Abstract

This paper presents the analysis, design, and characterization of the thirty gigahertz instrument receiver developed for the Q-U-I Joint Tenerife experiment. The receiver is aimed to obtain polarization data of the cosmic microwave background radiation from the sky, obtaining the Q, U, and I Stokes parameters of the incoming signal simultaneously. A comprehensive analysis of the theory behind the proposed receiver is presented for a linearly polarized input signal, and the functionality tests have demonstrated adequate results in terms of Stokes parameters, which validate the concept of the receiver based on electronic phase switching.