Marcelo A. Alvarez, James J. Bock, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, J. Borrill, Nicholas Battaglia, Lloyd Knox, Christopher G. Paine, A. Trangsrud, Peter Shirron, Krzysztof M. Gorski, Daniel Green, David T. Chuss, Charles R. Lawrence, C. Pryke, Mattia Negrello, Laura M. Fissel, Tomotake Matsumura, W. C. Jones, Raphael Flauger, Johannes Hubmayr, Mark J. Devlin, Joelle Cooperrider, Matteo Bonato, Gianfranco De Zotti, B. P. Crill, Qi Wen, Bradley R. Johnson, Alan J. Kogut, Brian M. Sutin, Shaul Hanany, Roger O'Brient, Jeff McMahon, Karl Young, Jacques Delabrouille, Département d'Astrophysique (ex SAP) (DAP), Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers (IRFU), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay, AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Paris (UP), Lystrup, Makenzie, MacEwen, Howard A., Fazio, Giovanni G., Batalha, Natalie, Siegler, Nicholas, Tong, Edward C., Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University (PSL)-PSL Research University (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7), Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University (PSL)-PSL Research University (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), MacEwen, Howard A, Fazio, Giovanni G, and Tong, Edward C
The Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (PICO) is a NASA-funded study of a Probe-class mission concept. The top-level science objectives are to probe the physics of the Big Bang by measuring or constraining the energy scale of inflation, probe fundamental physics by measuring the number of light particles in the Universe and the sum of neutrino masses, to measure the reionization history of the Universe, and to understand the mechanisms driving the cosmic star formation history, and the physics of the galactic magnetic field. PICO would have multiple frequency bands between 21 and 799 GHz, and would survey the entire sky, producing maps of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation, of galactic dust, of synchrotron radiation, and of various populations of point sources. Several instrument configurations, optical systems, cooling architectures, and detector and readout technologies have been and continue to be considered in the development of the mission concept. We will present a snapshot of the baseline mission concept currently under development., 11 pages, 5 Figure, submitted to SPIE, Proceedings of the Conference on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2018