REX is a NASA Astrophysics Small Explorer Mission concept to chart the history of cosmic dawn in unprecedented detail in space and time. REX will identify very young galaxies and black holes by means of their powerful Lyman alpha (Lyα) line emission using about 10 narrow-bandpass filters covering about 100 square degrees. The strong line emission identifies samples of the most actively star-forming early galaxies, believed to be the drivers of reionization. Moreover, mapping the distribution and properties of the Lyman alpha emitting population will reveal the distribution of ionized and neutral gas, because neutral gas scatters Lyman alpha light, rendering them difficult to detect. REX will use an 0.5-1m telescope and 1 square degree field of view, tiled with HgCdTe detectors with development heritage from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Its large, flexible filter complement will be used in a point-and-stare mode to identify Lyα emitting galaxies at a range of discrete redshift slices spanning the reionization era. In addition to its core reionization surveys, REX brings a new capability of tracing gas emission over large scales at the peak of star and black formation era. We will find millions of the youngest, least massive galaxies in epochs spanning the most active growth period of the universe. Applications will include ionized gas in nearby and distant galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and galaxy clusters. In summary, the REX survey will have the sensitivity and the area coverage to find the sites of earliest galaxy formation and will have the pixel size to enable good localization for follow up of individual galaxies with JWST and future telescopes.
The EXperiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to survey star formation over cosmological time scales using intensity mapping in the 420 – 540 GHz frequency range. EXCLAIM uses a fully cryogenic telescope coupled to six on-chip spectrometers featuring kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) to achieve high sensitivity, allowing for fast integration in dark atmospheric windows. The telescope receiver is cooled to ≈ 1.7 K by immersion in a superfluid helium bath and enclosed in a superfluid-tight shell with a meta-material anti-reflection coated silicon window. In addition to the optics and the spectrometer package, the receiver contains the magnetic shielding, the cryogenic segment of the spectrometer readout, and the sub-Kelvin cooling system. A three-stage continuous adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (CADR) keeps the detectors at 100 mK while a 4He sorption cooler provides a 900 mK thermal intercept for mechanical suspensions and coaxial cables. We present the design of the EXCLAIM receiver and report on the flight-like testing of major receiver components, including the superfluid-tight receiver window and the sub-Kelvin coolers.
The EXperiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM) will constrain star formation over cosmic time by carrying out a blind and complete census of redshifted carbon monoxide (CO) and ionized carbon ([CII]) emission in cross-correlation with galaxy survey data in redshift windows from the present to z=3.5 with a fully cryogenic, balloon-borne telescope. EXCLAIM will carry out extragalactic and Galactic surveys in a conventional balloon flight planned for 2023. EXCLAIM will be the first instrument to deploy µ-Spec silicon integrated spectrometers with a spectral resolving power R=512 covering 420-540 GHz. We summarize the design, science goals, and status of EXCLAIM.
The experiment for cryogenic large-aperture intensity mapping (EXCLAIM) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to survey star formation in windows from the present to z = 3.5. During this time, the rate of star formation dropped dramatically, while dark matter continued to cluster. EXCLAIM maps the redshifted emission of singly ionized carbon lines and carbon monoxide using intensity mapping, which permits a blind and complete survey of emitting gas through statistics of cumulative brightness fluctuations. EXCLAIM achieves high sensitivity using a cryogenic telescope coupled to six integrated spectrometers employing kinetic inductance detectors covering 420 to 540 GHz with spectral resolving power R = 512 and angular resolution ≈4 arc min. The spectral resolving power and cryogenic telescope allow the survey to access dark windows in the spectrum of emission from the upper atmosphere. EXCLAIM will survey 305 deg2 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 field from a conventional balloon flight in 2023. EXCLAIM will also map several galactic fields to study carbon monoxide and neutral carbon emission as tracers of molecular gas. We summarize the design phase of the mission.
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