Sensitive wide-field observations of polarized thermal emission from interstellar dust grains will allow astronomers to address key outstanding questions about the life cycle of matter and energy driving the formation of stars and the evolution of galaxies. Stratospheric balloon-borne telescopes can map this polarized emission at far-infrared wavelengths near the peak of the dust thermal spectrum—wavelengths that are inaccessible from the ground. In this paper we address the sensitivity achievable by a Super Pressure Balloon polarimetry mission, using as an example the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) Observatory. By launching from Wanaka, New Zealand, the BLAST Observatory can obtain a 30 days flight with excellent sky coverage—overcoming limitations of past experiments that suffered from short flight duration and/or launch sites with poor coverage of nearby star-forming regions. This proposed polarimetry mission will map large regions of the sky at sub-arcminute resolution, with simultaneous observations at 175, 250, and 350 μm, using a total of 8274 microwave kinetic inductance detectors. Here, we describe the scientific motivation for the BLAST Observatory, the proposed implementation, and the forecasting methods used to predict its sensitivity. We also compare our forecasted experiment sensitivity with other facilities.

中文翻译：

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BLAST 天文台：远红外气球旋光计的灵敏度研究

对星际尘埃颗粒偏振热发射的敏感宽视场观测将使天文学家能够解决有关驱动恒星形成和星系演化的物质和能量生命周期的关键悬而未决的问题。平流层气球运载望远镜可以在接近尘埃热谱峰值的远红外波长（从地面无法到达的波长）绘制这种偏振发射。在本文中，我们以气球载大孔径亚毫米望远镜（BLAST）天文台为例，讨论了超压气球偏振测量任务可实现的灵敏度。通过从新西兰瓦纳卡发射，BLAST 天文台可以获得 30 天的飞行，并具有良好的天空覆盖范围，克服了过去实验中飞行时间短和/或发射地点对附近恒星形成区域覆盖范围较差的限制。这项拟定的偏振测量任务将以亚弧分分辨率绘制大片天空区域图，并使用总共 8274 个微波动感电感探测器在 175、250 和 350 μm 下同时进行观测。在这里，我们描述了 BLAST 观测站的科学动机、提议的实施以及用于预测其敏感性的预测方法。我们还将我们预测的实验灵敏度与其他设施进行比较。