Qubic experiment
QUBIC is a cosmology project to study cosmic inflation by measuring the B-modes of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background. It uses bolometric interferometry, which combines the advantages of interferometry and those of the bolometer detectors. QUBIC observes the sky at two frequencies, 150 and 220 GHz, so that it can separate the cosmological signal from foreground emission, in particular thermal dust emission.
The QUBIC project was born in 2008 from the merger of BRAIN and MBI projects. A technical demonstrator of the instrument is being manufactured and should be tested in France in 2017. A first module should then be installed in Argentina in the region of Alto Chorrillos next to the Large Latin American Millimeter Array.
QUBIC is an international collaboration involving universities and laboratories in France, Italy, Argentina, the U.K. and the U.S.A.
