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A high‐resolution ocean model is used to characterize the variability of the shelf circulation and cross‐shelf transport around the South Georgia island (SG). The time‐mean shelf circulation consists of a counterclockwise flow with a net onshelf mass flow in the south and a net offshelf mass flow in the north. In the south, the cross‐shelf exchanges show a two‐layer structure with an offshelf flow below 350 m and onshelf flow above. In the north, the cross‐shelf exchanges show a three‐layer structure with the onshelf flow found only between 350 and 50 m. Correlation analysis shows that winds and the Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front (SACCF) current modulate the variability of the shelf circulation and cross‐shelf transport. Local wind stress is significantly correlated with the coastal currents, mid‐shelf jet, and cross‐shelf transports in the upper layer, while the SACCF modulates the shelf and cross‐shelf transports in the southwestern shelf. Likewise, an Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis indicates that the first mode of shelf circulation variability is highly correlated with the SACCF, while the second mode is explained by the local wind stress and significantly correlated with the Antarctic Oscillation. The El Niño Southern Oscillation does not significantly contribute to the shelf circulation but is significantly correlated with the surface temperature variability. The atmospheric teleconnection drives changes in local heat flux, such that warm El Niño conditions over the equatorial Pacific are associated with a cooling of the SG waters. This superposes local signals onto temperature anomalies advected from upstream in the ACC found in previous studies.

 

We present estimates of line-of-sight distortion fields derived from the 95 and 150 GHz data taken by BICEP2, BICEP3, and the Keck Array up to the 2018 observing season, leading to cosmological constraints and a study of instrumental and astrophysical systematics. Cosmological constraints are derived from three of the distortion fields concerning gravitational lensing from large-scale structure, polarization rotation from magnetic fields or an axion-like field, and the screening effect of patchy reionization. We measure an amplitude of the lensing power spectrum$A_L^{\varphi \varphi }=0.95\pm 0.20$. We constrain polarization rotation, expressed as the coupling constant of a Chern–Simons electromagnetic termg_aγ≤ 2.6 × 10⁻²/H_I, whereH_Iis the inflationary Hubble parameter, and an amplitude of primordial magnetic fields smoothed over 1 MpcB_1Mpc≤ 6.6 nG at 95 GHz. We constrain the rms of optical depth fluctuations in a simple “crinkly surface” model of patchy reionization, findingA^τ< 0.19 (2σ) for the coherence scale ofL_c= 100. We show that all of the distortion fields of the 95 and 150 GHz polarization maps are consistent with simulations including lensed ΛCDM, dust, and noise, with no evidence for instrumental systematics. In some cases, theEBandTBquadratic estimators presented here are more sensitive than our previous map-based null tests at identifying and rejecting spuriousB-modes that might arise from instrumental effects. Finally, we verify that the standard deprojection filtering in the BICEP/Keck data processing is effective at removing temperature to polarization leakage.

 

Constraining the Galactic foregrounds with multi-frequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations is an essential step towards ultimately reaching the sensitivity to measure primordial gravitational waves (PGWs), the sign of inflation after the Big-Bang that would be imprinted on the CMB. The BICEP Array is a set of multi-frequency cameras designed to constrain the energy scale of inflation through CMB B-mode searches while also controlling the polarized galactic foregrounds. The lowest frequency BICEP Array receiver (BA1) has been observing from the South Pole since 2020 and provides 30 GHz and 40 GHz data to characterize galactic synchrotron in our CMB maps. In this paper, we present the design of the BA1 detectors and the full optical characterization of the camera including the on-sky performance at the South Pole. The paper also introduces the design challenges during the first observing season including the effect of out-of-band photons on detectors performance. It also describes the tests done to diagnose that effect and the new upgrade to minimize these photons, as well as installing more dichroic detectors during the 2022 deployment season to improve the BA1 sensitivity. We finally report background noise measurements of the detectors with the goal of having photon-noise dominated detectors in both optical channels. BA1 achieves an improvement in mapping speed compared to the previous deployment season. 

The northeast periphery of the Scotia Sea hosts one of the largest chlorophyll‐a blooms of the Southern Ocean. This bloom peaks to the northwest of the island of South Georgia, extending eastward for hundreds of kilometers. Although the Southern Ocean has many islands of similar size, South Georgia is ecologically one of the most significant: It not only sustains one of the Southern Ocean's largest and most diverse ecosystems but also constitutes its single most important region for biological carbon sequestration. While the exceptional nature of South Georgia's blooms has been recognized widely, both the physical processes that contribute to their fertilization and the reasons why these blooms are larger than those of other similar regions (e.g., Kerguelen or Crozet Islands) are poorly understood. We use the results of a high‐resolution ocean model to investigate the physical processes that mediate the entrainment of deep, iron‐rich waters into the surface layers of the South Georgia region. We show that the Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front, the southernmost jet of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), pumps iron‐enriched waters from the deep ocean onto the bottom layers of South Georgia's shelf. These waters are upwelled along the northern coast of the island and are then exported into the Georgia Basin, where topographically steered circulation shields them from the dispersive effects of local currents and eddies, thus allowing the bloom development.

 

We characterize Galactic dust filaments by correlating BICEP/Keck and Planck data with polarization templates based on neutral hydrogen (Hi) observations. Dust polarization is important for both our understanding of astrophysical processes in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the search for primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In the diffuse ISM, Hiis strongly correlated with the dust and partly organized into filaments that are aligned with the local magnetic field. We analyze the deep BICEP/Keck data at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, over the low-column-density region of sky where BICEP/Keck has set the best limits on primordial gravitational waves. We separate the Hiemission into distinct velocity components and detect dust polarization correlated with the local Galactic Hibut not with the Hiassociated with Magellanic Streami. We present a robust, multifrequency detection of polarized dust emission correlated with the filamentary Himorphology template down to 95 GHz. For assessing its utility for foreground cleaning, we report that the Himorphology template correlates inBmodes at a ∼10%–65% level over the multipole range 20 <ℓ< 200 with the BICEP/Keck maps, which contain contributions from dust, CMB, and noise components. We measure the spectral index of the filamentary dust component spectral energy distribution to beβ= 1.54 ± 0.13. We find no evidence for decorrelation in this region between the filaments and the rest of the dust field or from the inclusion of dust associated with the intermediate velocity Hi. Finally, we explore the morphological parameter space in the Hi-based filamentary model.

 

The BICEP/Keck Collaboration is currently leading the quest to the highest sensitivity measurements of the polarized CMB anisotropies on degree scale with a series of cryogenic telescopes, of which BICEP Array is the latest Stage-3 upgrade with a total of ∼32,000 detectors. The instrument comprises 4 receivers spanning 30 to 270 GHz, with the low-frequency 30/40 GHz deployed to the South Pole Station in late 2019. The full complement of receivers is forecast to set the most stringent constraints on the tensor to scalar ratio r. Building on these advances, the overarching small-aperture telescope concept is already being used as the reference for further Stage-4 experiment design. In this paper I will present the development of the BICEP Array 150 GHz detector module and its fabrication requirements, with highlights on the high-density time division multiplexing (TDM) design of the cryogenic circuit boards. The low-impedance wiring required between the detectors and the first-stage SQUID amplifiers is crucial to maintain a stiff voltage bias on the detectors. A novel multi-layer FR4 Printed Circuit Board (PCB) with superconducting traces, capable of reading out up to 648 detectors, is presented along with its validation tests. I will also describe an ultra-high density TDM detector module we developed for a CMB-S4-like experiment that allows up to 1,920 detectors to be read out. TDM has been chosen as the detector readout technology for the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage-4 (CMB-S4) experiment based on its proven low-noise performance, predictable costs and overall maturity of the architecture. The heritage for TDM is rooted in mm- and submm-wave experiments dating back 20 years and has since evolved to support a multiplexing factor of 64x in Stage-3 experiments. 

For the past decade, the BICEP/Keck collaboration has been operating a series of telescopes at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station measuring degree-scale B-mode polarization imprinted in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) by primordial gravitational waves (PGWs). These telescopes are compact refracting polarimeters mapping about 2% of the sky, observing at a broad range of frequencies to account for the polarized foreground from Galactic synchrotron and thermal dust emission. Our latest publication "BK18" utilizes the data collected up to the 2018 observing season, in conjunction with the publicly available WMAP and Planck data, to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. It particularly includes (1) the 3-year BICEP3 data which is the current deepest CMB polarization map at the foreground-minimum 95 GHz; and (2) the Keck 220 GHz map with a higher signal-to-noise ratio on the dust foreground than the Planck 353 GHz map. We fit the auto- and cross-spectra of these maps to a multicomponent likelihood model (ΛCDM+dust+synchrotron+noise+r) and find it to be an adequate description of the data at the current noise level. The likelihood analysis yields σ(r)=0.009. The inference of r from our baseline model is tightened to r0.05=0.014+0.010−0.011 and r0.05<0.036 at 95% confidence, meaning that the BICEP/Keck B-mode data is the most powerful existing dataset for the constraint of PGWs. The up-coming BICEP Array telescope is projected to reach σ(r)≲0.003 using data up to 2027.