QUBIC in Argentina

GARCIA, BEATRIZ; HARARI, DIEGO; ETCHEGOYEN, A.; MEDINA, M. C.; ROMERO, GUSTAVO E

Congreso; 59 Reunión Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía; 2016

QUBIC (Q&U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology) is an experimental cosmology project tomeasure the B modes in the polarization of the cosmic background radiation (CBR), the fossil relic that revealsthe properties at the Universe 380,000 years after the Planck Era. Discovery of the CBR in 1964 and measurementof tiny temperature anisotropies in 1992 were major breakthroughs in our understanding of the Universe. Thenext challenge is to measure the polarization of the CBR accurately enough to detect B modes that would revealthe existence of primordial gravitational waves produced in the first stages of the Planck Era and probe inflationtheory, that assumes an accelerated expansion during the first 10−33 seconds. The B mode signal is howeverextremely weak and its measurement requires complex instruments. The QUBIC collaboration has developedthe concept of interferometric bolometry, that brings together the sensitivity of bolometric detectors with thecontrol of systematic effects provided by interferometry. QUBIC is an international collaboration involving severaluniversities and laboratories in France, Italy, United Kingdom and USA. Recently, Argentina has suggested AltoChorrillo (Salta), as candidate site for the installation of the experiment, next to the LLAMA site. Here wedescribe the scientific objectives and the main features of the experiment and we detail the process through whichthe international collaboration decided to install in Argentina its first module as well as the challenges for ourcountry in this project.