Telecon Notes April 11, 2018

Attendance: Nick, Dan, Amy, Hannes, Shaul, Dave

Notes by: Karl

• Status of TeamX outcomes (Amy)
• Update on requirements (Shaul, Dan, Raphael, …)
• Workshop
  • discussion sessions: what are the questions we want addressed during the discussion?
    • Fundamental Physics: what is the r goal? where is the constraint on N_eff comes from and the complementarity with Ground (contributed by Dan Green)?
    • Extragalactic: what is the role of the high frequencies
    • Foregrounds: what do we want to demonstrate by the time the report is submitted
    • Technology: what do we want to write in terms of technology readiness, maturation, and additional areas for NASA investment?
  • What other deliverables: report structure, STM, writing assignments, additional work

Status of TeamX outcomes (Amy)

• Have draft instrument study (last week). Amy, Brian commenting on that. Combining comments today and TeamX will return to those comments on Monday.
• This refinement is 1st pass. Will have 2nd review case before report goes to SOMA.
• Expecting mission TeamX Thursday. It will go through same process.
• SH: Basic process. Amy et al. comment on slides and iterate with TeamX. Then slides to EC and EC can comment and ask for changes. Then goes through TeamX again to finalize, and those final slides go to SOMA.

Update on requirements (Shaul, Dan, Raphael, …)

• Noise estimates have been 'best case estimate' with no margins. Still realistic assumptions.
• NASA also expects a 'requirement' be set. This assumes some margins.
• Driver is level 1 science goals. r limits are strongest driver. other things (tau) are important but cosmic variance is issue far before noise.
• Raphael talking with fundamental phys group on r driver.
  • current suggestion of 5 x 10^-5 for sigma®. (current assumptions give 2 x 10^-5 for 0.6 uK arcmin noise.)
    • This needs to be propagated through to a noise threshold.
  • Doesn't have a clear cut target where a null detection rules out all inflation (or similar large science goal)
  • Dan: agree. Raphael doesn't have a clear model based target. but 5 x10^-5 makes sense. He's looking for a clear model based argument from fundamental physics group.
• SH: Do we really need a requirement? Since this isn't really a proposal. Or just say how good we can do?
  • AT: It's needed. Other groups are doing requirements / margins. SOMA expects it and it's in NASA's guidelines.
  • SH: Makes sense. Also when compared to LB, S4, etc. it will likely be useful and maybe expected by community.

Workshop

• SH: Useful to give leads some guidance. Questions to ask. Deliverables afterword. Things to write up. etc. These would be prepared and given to folks ahead of time.
  • Dan: was envisioning panelists have few slides of their own to start with (they have advanced notice of our interests) rather than passing panelists questions cold.
    • know each panelists will have their own project they're excited about. give them a chance to get this out of the way first. May help make the following discussion broader.
    • SH: sure seems reasonable. Additionally are there broad guiding questions we want to pass to the full panel in advance.
    • Dan: also thinking that (for Fund. Phys.) the big picture issues, i.e. r, have been covered. so panel ask 'Are we missing possible science targets?' explore the less mainstream topics during discussion section.
    • SH: Yes. good question to ask.
• discussion sessions: what are the questions we want addressed during the discussion?
  • SH: Complementarity with ground should also be a general discussion question.
  • Dan: Are there other science targets well suited to space?
• Fundamental Physics: what is the r goal? where does the constraint on N_eff comes from (ell space) and the complementarity with Ground (contributed by Dan Green)?
• Extragalactic: what is the role of the high frequencies
• Foregrounds: what do we want to demonstrate by the time the report is submitted
• Technology: what do we want to write in terms of technology readiness, maturation, and additional areas for NASA investment?
• What other deliverables: report structure, STM, writing assignments, additional work
  • Nick: Organize possible white papers? What areas and what topics? Since people around is a good time to set goals, harder to ignore in person communication. Also means setting deadlines.