Simon Dicker
Research Associate and Lecturer
After completing my undergraduate studies at Cambridge University in 1994 I went on to obtain a PhD from the University of Manchester, Jodrell Bank working on astronomical instrumentation. I graduated in 1998 and moved to Philadelphia and took up a PostDoc position working for Mark Devlin. I’m very lucky to be married to my wife Anne who I met in Philadelphia while ballroom dancing.
Research Interests:
I have worked on instruments that operate from radio to submillimetre frequencies. My scientific interests are to use these instruments to study the early universe however some of the instruments are equally powerful at revealing what is going on in our own galaxy and solar system. My thesis project was a 33GHz interferometer used to observe fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Since then I have worked on the cryogenics for a sub-millimeter balloon born telescope (BLAST), optics for the ACT and PAPPA projects, and I am one of the lead scientists on MUSTANG a 90GHz array for the 100m (330ft) Green Bank Telescope. More details on these experiments are below and in some of my papers.
Selected Publications:
A full list of my publications and their abstracts (courtesy of ADS) can be found here. What follows is a list of my favorite ones.
Optical Design of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the Millimeter Bolometric Array Camera
· MUSTANG: A 90 GHz Bolometer Array for the Green Bank Telescope
· PAPPA: A New Generation of CMB Polarimetry
· A 90-GHz bolometer array for the Green Bank Telescope
· Millimeter wave reimaging optics for the 100 m Green Bank telescope
· A high capacity completely closed-cycle 250 mK 3He refrigeration system based on a pulse tube cooler
· Cosmic microwave background observations with the Jodrell Bank-IAC interferometer at 33GHz