Millimeter/Submillimeter-wave Cosmology: mm-wave Test Cryostat Design, Deployment and SCUBA-2/SMA Observations of the H1549 Overdense Galaxy Protocluster

Abstract

This thesis is divided into four main sections. I begin by providing the reader with some context for the significance of this work by introducing the concept of millimeter/submillimeter cosmology. This is followed by an introduction to the instrumentation used at these wavelengths and the design of a laboratory based system I developed to test sensitive broadband detectors operating at 0.25K. Next I will discuss a promising experiment in this field that is currently observing the cosmic microwave background in the Chilean Andes in search of a unique polarization pattern predicted by inflationary theories. In this section I will outline my contributions to the project and explain how it initiated the development of the system discussed in the previous section. I will conclude with a high-level data analysis project I worked on to gain some experience dealing with data sets from millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths.