LiteBIRD Collaboration: et al.
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. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) selected LiteBIRD in May 2019 as a strategic large-class (L-class) mission, with an expected launch in the late 2020s using JAXA’s H3 rocket. LiteBIRD is planned to orbit the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2, where it will map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization over the entire sky for three years, with three telescopes in 15 frequency bands between 34 and 448 GHz, to achieve an unprecedented total sensitivity of 2.2 μK-arcmin, with a typical angular resolution of 0.5○ at 100 GHz. The primary scientific objective of LiteBIRD is to 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 insight into the quantum nature of gravity and other new physics beyond the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. We provide an overview of the LiteBIRD project, including scientific objectives, mission and system requirements, operation concept, spacecraft and payload module design, expected scientific outcomes, potential design extensions and synergies with other projects. Subject Index LiteBIRD cosmic inflation, cosmic microwave background, B-mode polarization, primordial gravitational waves, quantum gravity, space telescope
This work is supported in Japan by ISAS/JAXA for Pre-Phase A2 studies, by the acceleration program of JAXA research and development directorate, by the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of MEXT, by the JSPS Core-to-Core Program, and by JSPS KAKENHI. The Italian LiteBIRD phase A contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI Grants No. 2020-9-HH.0 and 2016-24-H.1-2018), the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and a PGR grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The French LiteBIRD phase A contribution is supported by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiale (CNES), by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and by the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA). The Canadian contribution is supported by the Canadian Space Agency. The US contribution is supported by NASA grant no. 80NSSC18K0132. Norwegian participation in LiteBIRD is supported by the Research Council of Norway (Grant No. 263011). The Spanish LiteBIRD phase A contribution is supported by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), project refs. PID2019-110610RBC21 and AYA2017-84185-P. Funds that support the Swedish contributions come from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen) and the Swedish Research Council (Reg. no. 2019-03959). The German participation in LiteBIRD is supported in part by the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy (Grant No. EXC-2094- 390783311). LiteBIRD work has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. This research used resources of the Central Computing System owned and operated by the Computing Research Center at KEK, as well as resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy.