* Astronomy

Title: The Cosmic Foreground Explorer (COFE): A balloon-borne microwave polarimeter to characterise polarised foregrounds
Authors: Rodrigo Leonardi, Brian Williams, Marco Bersanelli, Ivan Ferreira, Philip M. Lubin, Peter R. Meinhold, Hugh O'Neill, Nathan C. Stebor, Fabrizio Villa, Thyrso Villela, Carlos A. Wuensche

The COsmic Foreground Explorer (COFE) is a balloon-borne microwave polarimeter designed to measure the low-frequency and low-` characteristics of dominant diffuse polarised foregrounds. Short duration balloon flights from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres will allow the telescope to cover up to 80% of the sky with an expected sensitivity per pixel better than 100 mu K  deg² from 10 GHz to 20 GHz. This is an important effort toward characterising the polarised foregrounds for future CMB experiments, in particular the ones that aim to detect primordial gravity wave signatures in the CMB polarisation angular power spectrum.

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