LiteBIRD satellite: JAXA's new strategic L-class mission for all-sky surveys of cosmic microwave background polarization
Masashi Hazumi, Peter A. Ade, Alexandre Adler, Erwan Allys, Kam Arnold, Didier Auguste, Jonathan Aumont, Ragnhild Aurlien, Jason Austermann, Carlo Baccigalupi, Anthony J. Banday, R. Banjeri, Rita B. Barreiro, Soumen Basak, Jim Beall, Dominic Beck, Shawn Beckman, Juan Bermejo, Paolo de Bernardis, Marco Bersanelli, Julien Bonis, Julian Borrill, Francois Boulanger, Sophie Bounissou, Maksym Brilenkov, Michael Brown, Martin Bucher, Erminia Calabrese, Paolo Campeti, Alessandro Carones, Francisco J. Casas, Anthony Challinor, Victor Chan, Kolen Cheung, Yuji Chinone, Jean F. Cliche, Loris Colombo, Fabio Columbro, Javier Cubas, Ari Cukierman, David Curtis, Giuseppe D'Alessandro, Nadia Dachlythra, Marco De Petris, Clive Dickinson, Patricia Diego-Palazuelos, Matt Dobbs, Tadayasu Dotani, Lionel Duband, Shannon Duff, Jean M. Duval, Ken Ebisawa, Tucker Elleflot, Hans K. Eriksen, Josquin Errard, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, Fabio Finelli, Raphael Flauger, Cristian Franceschet, Unni Fuskeland, Mathew Galloway, Ken Ganga, Jian R. Gao, Ricardo Genova-Santos, Martina Gerbino, Massimo Gervasi, Tommaso Ghigna, Eirik Gjerløw, Marcin L. Gradziel, Julien Grain, Frank Grupp, Alessandro Gruppuso, Jon E. Gudmundsson, Tijmen de Haan, Nils W. Halverson, Peter Hargrave, Takashi Hasebe, Masaya Hasegawa, Makoto Hattori, Sophie Henrot-Versillé, Daniel Herman, Diego Herranz, Charles A. Hill, Gene Hilton, Yukimasa Hirota, Eric Hivon, Renee A. Hlozek, Yurika Hoshino, Elena de la Hoz, Johannes Hubmayr, Kiyotomo Ichiki, Teruhito Iida, Hiroaki Imada, Kosei Ishimura, Hirokazu Ishino, Greg Jaehnig, Tooru Kaga, Shingo Kashima, Nobuhiko Katayama, Akihiro Kato
Abstract
LiteBIRD, the Lite (Light) satellite for the study of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection, is a space mission for primordial cosmology and fundamental physics. JAXA selected LiteBIRD in May 2019 as a strategic large-class (L-class) mission, with its expected launch in the late 2020s using JAXA's H3 rocket. LiteBIRD plans to map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization over the full sky with unprecedented precision. Its main scientific objective is to carry out a definitive search for the signal from cosmic inflation, either making a discovery or ruling out well-motivated inflationary models. The measurements of LiteBIRD will also provide us with an insight into the quantum nature of gravity and other new physics beyond the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. To this end, LiteBIRD will perform full-sky surveys for three years at the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2 for 15 frequency bands between 34 and 448 GHz with three telescopes, to achieve a total sensitivity of 2.16 μK-arcmin with a typical angular resolution of 0.5° at 100 GHz. We provide an overview of the LiteBIRD project, including scientific objectives, mission requirements, top-level system requirements, operation concept, and expected scientific outcomes.