Instrumentation for the Tomographic Ionized-Carbon Intensity Mapping Experiment (TIME)

TIME (the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Intensity Mapping Experiment) is a new instrument designed to probe the epoch of reionization (EoR) by measuring the 158 micron ionized carbon emission line (referred to as [CII]) from redshift 5 - 9 using line intensity mapping.  I will describe the instrument which is an R of ~100 spectrometer sensitive to the 200-300 GHz radiation.  TIME will detect the [CII] clustering fluctuations from faint galaxies during EoR. The [CII] intensity mapping measurements are complimentary to both 21-cm measurements of the EoR and direct detections of high redshift galaxies with HST, ALMA, and, in the future, JWST.

I will discuss the design and testing of TIME, including the design concerns for highly sensitive mm-wavelength instruments, as well as the detector technologies currently being used and avenues for future development.  I will detail how we measure noise properties, spectral response, and optical efficiency of the detectors, and feed back the parameters into the fabrication and design process.