Title: Building the next-generation CMB satellite LiteBIRD
Abstract: LiteBIRD will launch around 2030 and survey the whole millimeter-wave sky in 15 frequency bands to 2.2 uK-arcmin. The primary science goal is to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We will measure r to 1e-3 and if r=0.01, we will get 5 sigma detections of both the reionization and recombination peaks in the CMB power spectrum. We are also chasing many secondary goals such as the reionization history, neutrino mass, growth of structure, E-mode polarization, cosmic birefringence, and galactic science.
With a planned ~5,000 transition edge sensor bolometers, LiteBIRD is significantly improving on the previous-generation CMB satellite Planck, which had 52 bolometers. This scaling up of detector count by two orders of magnitude is enabled by new technologies which have already been demonstrated on ground-based CMB telescopes. As a CMB experimentalist, I will give my perspective on what it's like building a JAXA-led L-class mission with contributions from all over the world including Milano-Bicocca.