Polarbear is a ground-based experiment located in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. The experiment is designed to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode polarization at several arcminute resolution. The CMB B-mode polarization on degree angular scales is a unique signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic in ation and B-mode signal on sub-degree scales is induced by the gravitational lensing from large-scale structure. Science observations began in early 2012 with an array of 1,274 polarization sensitive antenna-couple Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers at 150 GHz. We published the first CMB-only measurement of the B-mode polarization on sub-degree scales induced by gravitational lensing in December 2013 followed by the first measurement of the B-mode power spectrum on those scales in March 2014. In this proceedings, we review the physics of CMB B-modes and then describe the Polarbear experiment, observations, and recent results.

First light galaxies have predictable linear clustering, and are expected to produce fluctuations with a characteristic spatial power spectrum, which peaks at an angular scale of ~ 10 arcminutes and in the 1―2 μm spectral regions. The Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment 2 (CIBER2) is a dedicated sounding rocket mission for measuring the fluctuations in the extragalactic infrared background light, following up the previous successful measurements of CIBER1. With a 28.5 cm telescope accompanied with three arms of camera barrels and a dual broadband filter on each H2RG (λc = 2.5 μm) array, CIBER2 can measure 6 bands of wide field (1.1 × 2.2 degrees) up to 3 AB magnitudes deeper than CIBER1. This project is leaded by California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, collaborating internationally with Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Korea Basic Science Institute, and Seoul National University. The Korean team is in charge of 1) one H2RG scientific array, 2) ground station hardware and software, 3) telescope lenses, and 4) flight and test bed electronics fabrication. In this paper, we describe the detailed activities of the Korean participation as well as the current status of the CIBER2 project.

We present new constraints on the cosmic optical background (COB) obtained from an analysis of the Pioneer 10/11 Imaging Photopolarimeter (IPP) data. After careful examination of the data quality, the usable measurements free from the zodiacal light are integrated into sky maps at the blue ( ∼0.44μm) and red (∼0.64μm ) bands. Accurate starlight subtraction was achieved by referring to all-sky star catalogs and a Galactic stellar population synthesis model down to 32.0 mag. We find that the residual light is separated into two components: one component shows a clear correlation with the thermal 100μm brightness, whilst the other shows a constant level in the lowest 100μm brightness region. The presence of the second component is significant after all the uncertainties and possible residual light in the Galaxy are taken into account, thus it most likely has an extragalactic origin (i.e., the COB). The derived COB brightness is ((1.8±0.9)×10−9 and (1.2±0.9)×10−9ergs−1cm−2sr−1 \AA−1 in the blue and red spectral regions, respectively, or 7.9±4.0 and 7.7±5.8nWm−2sr−1 . Based on a comparison with the integrated brightness of galaxies, we conclude that the bulk of the COB is comprised of normal galaxies which have already been resolved by the current deepest observations. There seems to be little room for contributions from other populations including "first stars" at these wavelengths. On the other hand, the first component of the IPP residual light represents the diffuse Galactic light (DGL)-scattered starlight by the interstellar dust. We derive the mean DGL-to- 100μm brightness ratios of 2.1×10−3 and 4.6×10−3 at the two bands, which are roughly consistent with previous observations toward denser dust regions. Extended red emission in the diffuse interstellar medium is also confirmed.

We present the sensitivity calculation results for observing the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIRB) by the Multi-purpose IR Imaging System (MIRIS), which will be launched in 2010 as a main payload of the Science and Technology Satellite 3 (STSAT-3). MIRIS will observe in I ( 0.9∼1.2um) and H (1.2∼2.0um) band with a 4×4 degree field of view to obtain the large scale structure ( ∼3 degree) of the CIRB. With the given specifications of the MIRIS, our sensitivity calculation results show that the MIRIS has a detection limit of ∼9nWm−2sr−1 (I band) and ∼6nWm−2sr−1 (H band), which is appropriate to observe the large scale structure of CIRB.

The international cooperation project CIBER (Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment) is a rocket-borne instrument, of which the scientific goal is to measure the cosmic near-infrared extra-galactic background to search for signatures of primordial galaxy formation. CIBER consists of a wide-field two-color camera, a low-resolution absolute spectrometer, and a high-resolution narrow-band imaging spectrometer. Currently, all the subsystems have been built, and the integration, testing, and calibration of the CIBER system are on process for the scheduled launch in June 2008.

A Korean team (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Korea Basic Science Institute, and Kyung Hee University) takes part in an international cooperation project called CIBER (Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment), which has begun with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in USA and Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in Japan. CIBER is a rocket-borne instrument, of which the scientific goal is to measure the cosmic near-infrared extra-galactic background to search for signatures of primordial galaxy formation. CIBER consists of a wide-field two-color camera, a low-resolution absolute spectrometer, and a high-resolution narrow-band imaging spectrometer. The Korean team is in charge of the ground support electronics and manufacturing of optical parts of the narrow-band spectrometer, which will provide excellent opportunities for science and technology to Korean infrared groups.