Ultra-low sidelobe antenna starts CMB
measurements
Michael Jones and his colleagues in Oxford and elsewhere have started to use a TK designed
and manufactured 5GHz Ultra Gaussian corrugated horn as the feed to their "CBASS" full sky
survey. As with any Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiment, very good sidelobe
performance is vital - you do not want to be measuring the ground!
The slides above and below were taken from Prof. Jones's talk at the 2011 Planck Conference
in Paris.
The idea behind these horns, coming from Dr Graham Smith in St.Andrews, use a correctly
phased component of HE12 mode to compliment the dominant HE11 mode at the aperture of
the horn. The image below shows what sort of contamination anyone whiching to deal with
forgrounds must contend with
More details can be found at the Oxford site