The Einstein Polarization Interferometer for Cosmology (EPIC)
Peter Timbie
University of Wisconsin
timbie@physics.wisc.edu
Additional authors:
EPIC is a concept under study for the NASA's Einstein Inflation Probe. This mission will search for the faint polarization signals that are expected to appear in the 2.7 K cosmic microwave background (CMB) from two sources: gravitational waves generated during the inflation and gravitational lensing of polarized CMB signals generated at decoupling. I will review some of the challenges in making this measurement and discuss the plan that we are considering, to combine two well-developed technolgies that have produced significant advances in mapping the CMB: interferometry and bolometric detectors. We anticipate that mapping the full sky with the combination of these two techniques will open a new window on the early universe.
