The Millimeter-wave Bolometric Interferometer: Data Analysis, Simulations and Microwave Instrumentation

The past decade has been the most exciting time in cosmology in these respects: 1. The discovery of Dark Energy, and an estimate of the composition of the universe. 2. Advances in the understanding of the composition of dark matter. 3. The discovery that the universe is flat. The following advances have occured in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) cosmology: 1. A systematic characterization of cosmological models followed by a large number of successful large an d small-scale CMB experiments. 2. Measurements of CMB temperature power spectrum. 3. Detection of CMB polarization. 4. Appearance of large CMB datasets with new techniques for data analysis. Results from CMB theory, experiments and analysis have thus dominated advances in cosmology over the past few years, and are expected to do so with the upcoming experiments and analysis techniques as well. All the aforementioned results fit well within and are explained well by the inflationary paradigm. However, current evidence for inflation is indirect. The next generation of CMB experiments (this thesis describes one of these) will aim at providing the most direct evidence for the inflationary paradigm through the detection of B-modes in CMB polarization. In this thesis, we describe the design, construction and plans for implementation of a novel instrument, the Millimeter-Wave Bolometric Interferometer (MBI), an interferometer designed