The Simons Observatory: Studies of Detector Yield and Readout Noise From the First Large-Scale Deployment of Microwave Multiplexing at the Large Aperture Telescope

• Published in: arXiv.org
• Main Authors: Satterthwaite, Thomas P, Ahmed, Zeeshan, Bae, Kyuyoung, Devlin, Mark, Dicker, Simon, Duff, Shannon M, Dutcher, Daniel, Haridas, Saianeesh K, Henderson, Shawn W, Hubmayr, Johannes, Johnson, Bradley R, Kofman, Anna, Lashner, Jack, Link, Michael J, Lucas, Tammy J, Manduca, Alex, Niemack, Michael D, Orlowski-Scherer, John, Pinsonneault-Marotte, Tristan, Silva-Feaver, Max, Staggs, Suzanne, Vavagiakis, Eve M, Wang, Yuhan, Zheng, Kaiwen
• Format: Paper Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 03.06.2024
• Subjects: Apertures; Commissioning; Cosmic microwave background; Large scale structure of the universe; Multiplexing; Observatories; Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Read out systems; Sensors; Sky surveys (astronomy); Superconducting quantum interference devices; Superconductivity; Telescopes
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.01844

The Simons Observatory is a new ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, which is currently being commissioned in Chile's Atacama Desert. During its survey, the observatory's small aperture telescopes will map 10% of the sky in bands centered at frequencies ranging from 27 to 280 GHz to constrain cosmic inflation models, and its large aperture telescope will map 40% of the sky in the same bands to constrain cosmological parameters and use weak lensing to study large-scale structure. To achieve these science goals, the Simons Observatory is deploying these telescopes' receivers with 60,000 state-of-the-art superconducting transition-edge sensor bolometers for its first five year survey. Reading out this unprecedented number of cryogenic sensors, however, required the development of a novel readout system. The SMuRF electronics were developed to enable high-density readout of superconducting sensors using cryogenic microwave SQUID multiplexing technology. The commissioning of the SMuRF systems at the Simons Observatory is the largest deployment to date of microwave multiplexing technology for transition-edge sensors. In this paper, we show that a significant fraction of the systems deployed so far to the Simons Observatory's large aperture telescope meet baseline specifications for detector yield and readout noise in this early phase of commissioning.