The Search for Primodial Gravitational Waves and Gravitational Lensing

Recent advances in the capabilities of stratospheric scientific balloons provide unique opportunities for cosmology and astrophysics.  This talk will focus on two ongoing research programs designed to realize the scientific potential of this platform.  Spider is a millimeter wavelength polarimeter designed to probe the signature of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background.  During the inaugural Antarctic Long Duration flight in 2015, it was the most sensitive polarimeter ever built.  I will describe the flight and the status of the cosmological analysis.  SuperBIT is a high-resolution, wide-field imaging telescope operating in six bands between 300-900 nm.  During the course of a 100-day, mid-latitude balloon flight SuperBIT will provide imaging of hundreds of galactic clusters

Bill Jones received his B.A. in Physics from Princeton and his PhD from Caltech. The focus of his research has been on various aspects of cosmic microwave background observations. He has been intimately involved with three influential experimental efforts to study the properties of the CMB: the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, the Planck Satellite, and the SPIDER mission, for which he was PI.  Bill is currently an associate professor at Princeton.