Event

Inflation is thought to have seeded the cosmos with a hum of primordial gravitational waves - unique messengers from the universe's earliest moments. If present, these should have left a unique "B-mode" signature on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. This signal poses enormous experimental challenges, as it is exceedingly faint and obscured by Galactic emission. SPIDER is a powerful balloon-borne instrument designed to tease out this polarization pattern in the presence of galactic foregrounds. I will present instrument performance and data analysis from SPIDER's successful long-duration balloon flight over the Antarctic ice, including its first constraints on primordial B-modes. I will also discuss prospects for SPIDER’s second flight and future related efforts.