© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. The Planck cosmic microwave background temperature data are best fit with a ΛCDM model that mildly contradicts constraints from other cosmological probes. The South Pole Telescope (SPT) 2540 SPT-SZ survey offers measurements on sub-degree angular scales (multipoles ) with sufficient precision to use as an independent check of the Planck data. Here we build on the recent joint analysis of the SPT-SZ and Planck data in Hou et al. by comparing ΛCDM parameter estimates using the temperature power spectrum from both data sets in the SPT-SZ survey region. We also restrict the multipole range used in parameter fitting to focus on modes measured well by both SPT and Planck, thereby greatly reducing sample variance as a driver of parameter differences and creating a stringent test for systematic errors. We find no evidence of systematic errors from these tests. When we expand the maximum multipole of SPT data used, we see low-significance shifts in the angular scale of the sound horizon and the physical baryon and cold dark matter densities, with a resulting trend to higher Hubble constant. When we compare SPT and Planck data on the SPT-SZ sky patch to Planck full-sky data but keep the multipole range restricted, we find differences in the parameters nsand Ase-2τ. We perform further checks, investigating instrumental effects and modeling assumptions, and we find no evidence that the effects investigated are responsible for any of the parameter shifts. Taken together, these tests reveal no evidence for systematic errors in SPT or Planck data in the overlapping sky coverage and multipole range and at most weak evidence for a breakdown of ΛCDM or systematic errors influencing either the Planck data outside the SPT-SZ survey area or the SPT data at ℓ >.

© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We report constraints on cosmological parameters from the angular power spectrum of a cosmic microwave background (CMB) gravitational lensing potential map created using temperature data from 2500 deg2 of South Pole Telescope (SPT) data supplemented with data from Planck in the same sky region, with the statistical power in the combined map primarily from the SPT data. We fit the lensing power spectrum to a model including cold dark matter and a cosmological constant (λCDM), and to models with single-parameter extensions to λCDM. We find constraints that are comparable to and consistent with those found using the full-sky Planck CMB lensing data, e.g., σ8ωm0.25 = 0.598 ± 0.024 from the lensing data alone with weak priors placed on other parameters. Combining with primary CMB data, we explore single-parameter extensions to λCDM. We find or ωk = -0.012-0.0230.021 or Mv < 0.70 eV at 95%25 confidence, in good agreement with results including the lensing potential as measured by Planck. We include two parameters that scale the effect of lensing on the CMB: AL, which scales the lensing power spectrum in both the lens reconstruction power and in the smearing of the acoustic peaks, and Aφφ, which scales only the amplitude of the lensing reconstruction power spectrum. We find Aφφ × AL = 1.01 ± 0.08 for the lensing map made from combined SPT and Planck data, indicating that the amount of lensing is in excellent agreement with expectations from the observed CMB angular power spectrum when not including the information from smearing of the acoustic peaks.

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present a cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing map produced from a linear combination of South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck temperature data. The 150 GHz temperature data from the 2500 deg2 SPT-SZ survey is combined with the Planck 143 GHz data in harmonic space to obtain a temperature map that has a broader ℓ coverage and less noise than either individual map. Using a quadratic estimator technique on this combined temperature map, we produce a map of the gravitational lensing potential projected along the line of sight. We measure the auto-spectrum of the lensing potential CLφφ, and compare it to the theoretical prediction for a ΛCDM cosmology consistent with the Planck 2015 data set, finding a best-fit amplitude of 0.95-0.06+0.06(stat.)0.01+0.01(sys.). The null hypothesis of no lensing is rejected at a significance of 24σ. One important use of such a lensing potential map is in cross-correlations with other dark matter tracers. We demonstrate this cross-correlation in practice by calculating the cross-spectrum, CLφG, between the SPT+Planck lensing map and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) galaxies. We fit CLφG to a power law of the form PL = a(L/L0)-b with a, L 0, and b fixed, and find ηφG = CLφG/PL = 0.94-0.04+0.04, which is marginally lower, but in good agreement with ηφG = 1.00-0.01+0.02, the best-fit amplitude for the cross-correlation of Planck-2015 CMB lensing and WISE galaxies over ∼67% of the sky. The lensing potential map presented here will be used for cross-correlation studies with the Dark Energy Survey, whose footprint nearly completely covers the SPT 2500 deg2 field.

SPHEREx is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission selected for Phase A study. SPHEREx would carry out the first all-sky spectral survey in the near infrared. At the end of its two-year mission, SPHEREx would obtain 0.75-to-5$\mu$m spectra of every 6.2 arcsec pixel on the sky, with spectral resolution R>35 and a 5-$\sigma$ sensitivity AB$>$19 per spectral/spatial resolution element. More details concerning SPHEREx are available at http://spherex.caltech.edu. The SPHEREx team has proposed three specific science investigations to be carried out with this unique data set: cosmic inflation, interstellar and circumstellar ices, and the extra-galactic background light. Though these three themes are undoubtedly compelling, they are far from exhausting the scientific output of SPHEREx. Indeed, SPHEREx would create a unique all-sky spectral database including spectra of very large numbers of astronomical and solar system targets, including both extended and diffuse sources. These spectra would enable a wide variety of investigations, and the SPHEREx team is dedicated to making the data available to the community to enable these investigations, which we refer to as Legacy Science. To that end, we have sponsored two workshops for the general scientific community to identify the most interesting Legacy Science themes and to ensure that the SPHEREx data products are responsive to their needs. In February of 2016, some 50 scientists from all fields met in Pasadena to develop these themes and to understand their implications for the SPHEREx mission. The 2016 workshop highlighted many synergies between SPHEREx and other contemporaneous astronomical missions, facilities, and databases. Consequently, in January 2018 we convened a second workshop at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge to focus specifically on these synergies. This white paper reports on the results of the 2018 SPHEREx workshop.

© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. We present measurements of the E-mode polarization angular auto-power spectrum (EE) and temperature-E-mode cross-power spectrum (TE) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using 150 GHz data from three seasons of SPTpol observations. We report the power spectra over the spherical harmonic multipole range 50 < ℓ ≤ 8000 and detect nine acoustic peaks in the EE spectrum with high signal-to-noise ratio. These measurements are the most sensitive to date of the EE and TE power spectra at ℓ > 1050 and ℓ > 1475, respectively. The observations cover 500 , a fivefold increase in area compared to previous SPTpol analyses, which increases our sensitivity to the photon diffusion damping tail of the CMB power spectra enabling tighter constraints on ΛCDM model extensions. After masking all sources with unpolarized flux mJy, we place a 95% confidence upper limit on residual polarized point-source power of at Dℓ = ℓ(ℓ+1)ℓℓ/2π < 0.107 μK2 at ℓ = 3000, suggesting that the EE damping tail dominates foregrounds to at least ℓ= 4050 with modest source masking. We find that the SPTpol data set is in mild tension with the ΛCDM model (2.1 δ), and different data splits prefer parameter values that differ at the ∼ 1 δ level. When fitting SPTpol data at ℓ < 1000, we find cosmological parameter constraints consistent with those for Planck temperature. Including SPTpol data at ℓ> 1000 results in a preference for a higher value of the expansion rate (H071.3 ± 2.1 Km s-1 Mpc-1) and a lower value for present-day density fluctuations (δ8 =0.77 ±0.02).

SPHEREx is a proposed SMEX mission selected for Phase A. SPHEREx will carry out the first all-sky spectral survey and provide for every 6.2" pixel a spectra between 0.75 and 4.18 $\mu$m [with R$\sim$41.4] and 4.18 and 5.00 $\mu$m [with R$\sim$135]. The SPHEREx team has proposed three specific science investigations to be carried out with this unique data set: cosmic inflation, interstellar and circumstellar ices, and the extra-galactic background light. It is readily apparent, however, that many other questions in astrophysics and planetary sciences could be addressed with the SPHEREx data. The SPHEREx team convened a community workshop in February 2016, with the intent of enlisting the aid of a larger group of scientists in defining these questions. This paper summarizes the rich and varied menu of investigations that was laid out. It includes studies of the composition of main belt and Trojan/Greek asteroids; mapping the zodiacal light with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution; identifying and studying very low-metallicity stars; improving stellar parameters in order to better characterize transiting exoplanets; studying aliphatic and aromatic carbon-bearing molecules in the interstellar medium; mapping star formation rates in nearby galaxies; determining the redshift of clusters of galaxies; identifying high redshift quasars over the full sky; and providing a NIR spectrum for most eROSITA X-ray sources. All of these investigations, and others not listed here, can be carried out with the nominal all-sky spectra to be produced by SPHEREx. In addition, the workshop defined enhanced data products and user tools which would facilitate some of these scientific studies. Finally, the workshop noted the high degrees of synergy between SPHEREx and a number of other current or forthcoming programs, including JWST, WFIRST, Euclid, GAIA, K2/Kepler, TESS, eROSITA and LSST.

© 2002-2011 IEEE. In this paper, we describe the optimization of transition-edge-sensor (TES) detector arrays for the third-generation camera for the South Pole Telescope. The camera, which contains ~ 16 000 detectors, will make high-angular-resolution maps of the temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background. Our key results are scatter in the transition temperature of Ti/Au TESs is reduced by fabricating the TESs on a thin Ti(5 nm)/Au(5 nm) buffer layer and the thermal conductivity of the legs that support our detector islands is dominated by the SiOx dielectric in the microstrip transmission lines that run along the legs.

We cross-correlate galaxy weak lensing measurements from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) year-one (Y1) data with a cosmic microwave background (CMB) weak lensing map derived from South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck data, with an effective overlapping area of 1289 deg$^{2}$. With the combined measurements from four source galaxy redshift bins, we reject the hypothesis of no lensing with a significance of $10.8\sigma$. When employing angular scale cuts, this significance is reduced to $6.8\sigma$, which remains the highest signal-to-noise measurement of its kind to date. We fit the amplitude of the correlation functions while fixing the cosmological parameters to a fiducial $\Lambda$CDM model, finding $A = 0.99 \pm 0.17$. We additionally use the correlation function measurements to constrain shear calibration bias, obtaining constraints that are consistent with previous DES analyses. Finally, when performing a cosmological analysis under the $\Lambda$CDM model, we obtain the marginalized constraints of $\Omega_{\rm m}=0.261^{+0.070}_{-0.051}$ and $S_{8}\equiv \sigma_{8}\sqrt{\Omega_{\rm m}/0.3} = 0.660^{+0.085}_{-0.100}$. These measurements are used in a companion work that presents cosmological constraints from the joint analysis of two-point functions among galaxies, galaxy shears, and CMB lensing using DES, SPT and Planck data.

We measure the cross-correlation between redMaGiC galaxies selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year-1 data and gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) reconstructed from South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck data over 1289 sq. deg. When combining measurements across multiple galaxy redshift bins spanning the redshift range of $0.15

© 2018 The Author(s). Correlations between tracers of the matter density field and gravitational lensing are sensitive to the evolution of the matter power spectrum and the expansion rate across cosmic time. Appropriately defined ratios of such correlation functions, on the other hand, depend only on the angular diameter distances to the tracer objects and to the gravitational lensing source planes. Because of their simple cosmological dependence, such ratios can exploit available signal-to-noise ratio down to small angular scales, even where directly modelling the correlation functions is difficult. We present a measurement of lensing ratios using galaxy position and lensing data from the Dark Energy Survey, and CMB lensing data from the South Pole Telescope and Planck, obtaining the highest precision lensing ratio measurements to date. Relative to the concordance CDM model, we find a best-fitting lensing ratio amplitude of A = 1.1 ± 0.1. We use the ratio measurements to generate cosmological constraints, focusing on the curvature parameter. We demonstrate that photometrically selected galaxies can be used to measure lensing ratios, and argue that future lensing ratio measurements with data from a combination of LSST and Stage-4 CMB experiments can be used to place interesting cosmological constraints, even after considering the systematic uncertainties associated with photometric redshift and galaxy shear estimation.