South Pole Telescope

The South Pole Telescope ( SPT ) is a radio telescope with a 10 m diameter reflector with location at the Amundsen -Scott South Pole Station.

SPT is operating in the millimeter wave range, at frequencies of 95, 150 and 220 GHz. Due to the excellent properties of the cold and dry observation location at the South Pole and by using large Bolometerkameras with currently 960 elements quickly large sky areas can be mapped. The accuracy of the reflector allows for future observations in the submillimeter range.

Scientific main goal of the SPT is using the Sunyaev - Zel'dovich effect to detect thousands of galaxy clusters to investigate with their help, the equation of state of dark energy. Nor anisotropies produced by the SZ effect of the cosmic microwave background are observed. At the same time discover the large-scale surveys with the SPT radio galaxies and gravitational lensing enhanced infrared galaxies at high redshift.

The SPT is funded by the National Science Foundation. The project is a collaboration of the University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Colorado at Boulder, McGill University and University of California, Davis.

In its scientific objectives, the SPT is similar to the Atacama Cosmology Telescope.

In the same station is also the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization ( BICEP ) telescope.