PICO: Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins

Charles Bennett , Scott Dodelson , Lyman Page , James G. Bartlett (1) , Nick Battaglia , Jamie Bock , Julian Borrill , David Chuss , Brendan P. Crill , Jacques Delabrouille (1, 2) , Mark Devlin , Laura Fissel , Raphael Flauger , Dan Green , J.Colin Hill , Johannes Hubmayr , William Jones , Lloyd Knox , Al Kogut , Charles Lawrence , Jeff Mcmahon , Tim Pearson , Clem Pryke , Marcel Schmittfull , Amy Trangsrud , Alexander van Engelen , Marcelo Alvarez , Emmanuel Artis (2) , Peter Ashton , Jonathan Aumont (3) , Ragnhild Aurlien , Ranajoy Banerji , R. Belen Barreiro , James G. Bartlett (1) , Soumen Basak , Kimberly K. Boddy , Matteo Bonato , François Bouchet (4) , François Boulanger (5) , Blakesley Burkhart , Jens Chluba , Susan E. Clark , Joelle Cooperrider , Gianfranco de Zotti , Eleonora Di Valentino , Joy Didier , Olivier Doré , Hans K. Eriksen , Josquin Errard (1) , Tom Essinger-Hileman , Stephen Feeney , Jeffrey Filippini , Unni Fuskeland , Vera Gluscevic , Krzysztof M. Gorski , Shaul Hanany , Brandon Hensley , Diego Herranz , J. Colin Hill , Eric Hivon (4) , Renée Hložek , Bradley R. Johnson , Terry Jones , Marcos López-Caniego , Alex Lazarian , Zack Li , Mathew Madhavacheril , Jean-Baptiste Melin (2) , Joel Meyers , Calum Murray (1) , Mattia Negrello , Giles Novak , Roger O'Brient , Christopher Paine , Levon Pogosian , Giuseppe Puglisi , Mathieu Remazeilles , Graca Rocha , Douglas Scott , Peter Shirron , Ian Stephens , Brian Sutin , Maurizio Tomasi , Flavien Vansyngel (6) , Ingunn K. Wehus , Qi Wen , Siyao Xu , Karl Young , Andrea Zonca

1 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
2 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
5 ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris
6 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

The Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (PICO) is an imaging polarimeter that will scan the sky for 5 years in 21 frequency bands spread between 21 and 799 GHz. It will produce full-sky surveys of intensity and polarization with a final combined-map noise level of 0.87 $\mu$K arcmin for the required specifications, equivalent to 3300 Planck missions, and with our current best-estimate would have a noise level of 0.61 $\mu$K arcmin (6400 Planck missions). PICO will either determine the energy scale of inflation by detecting the tensor to scalar ratio at a level $r=5\times 10^{-4}~(5\sigma)$, or will rule out with more than $5\sigma$ all inflation models for which the characteristic scale in the potential is the Planck scale. With LSST's data it could rule out all models of slow-roll inflation. PICO will detect the sum of neutrino masses at $>4\sigma$, constrain the effective number of light particle species with $\Delta N_{\rm eff}<0.06~(2\sigma)$, and elucidate processes affecting the evolution of cosmic structures by measuring the optical depth to reionization with errors limited by cosmic variance and by constraining the evolution of the amplitude of linear fluctuations $\sigma_{8}(z)$ with sub-percent accuracy. Cross-correlating PICO's map of the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect with LSST's gold sample of galaxies will precisely trace the evolution of thermal pressure with $z$. PICO's maps of the Milky Way will be used to determine the make up of galactic dust and the role of magnetic fields in star formation efficiency. With 21 full sky legacy maps in intensity and polarization, which cannot be obtained in any other way, the mission will enrich many areas of astrophysics. PICO is the only single-platform instrument with the combination of sensitivity, angular resolution, frequency bands, and control of systematic effects that can deliver this compelling, timely, and broad science.

Mots clés: scale: inflation; inflation: slow-roll approximation; inflation: model; scale: Planck; fluctuation: linear; beam: polarization; star: formation; neutrino: mass; thermal; galaxy; noise; cosmic background radiation; quantum gravity; supernova; dark matter; birefringence; photon; gravitational radiation; scalar tensor; power spectrum; infrared; temperature; redshift; Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect; angular resolution; magnetic field; sensitivity; ionization; efficiency; structure; pressure; optical; imaging; gold

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Charles Bennett, Scott Dodelson, Lyman Page, James G. Bartlett, Nick Battaglia, et al.. PICO: Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins. 2019. ⟨hal-02066974⟩