The Particle Cosmology group at the University of Illinois explores the connections betwen the universe's workings on its largest and smallest scales. We develop and employ “readout systems” for the cosmic laboratory: instruments to help tease out the signatures of new fundamental physics from astrophysical messengers. Recent efforts have focused on measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the hot early universe, from ground, balloon, and space. New efforts include technology development for CMB and THz observations.
Our group’s research touches upon a broad range of topics bridging the domains of cosmology and fundamental physics. Our instrumentation employs cutting-edge technologies developed in condensed matter and engineering labs, including superconducting detectors and millimeter-wave optics. Our data analysis efforts involve large-scale computing and simulations. Students develop a wide variety of skills in a collaborative environment while addressing some of the highest-profile questions of modern cosmology.
SPIDER is an ambitious balloon-borne instrument seeking evidence of primordial gravitational waves in the "B-mode" polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). SPIDER has completed two long-duration balloon flights over the Antarctic, with launches on January 1, 2015 (launch video), and Dec. 22, 2022 (photos/video). Prof. Filippini served as PI for the second campaign.
A successor mission, Taurus, will measure the universe's optical depth to reionization (τ) and characterize Galactic dust foregrounds over the bulk of the sky from an ultra-long duration balloon flight in 2027.
The Terahertz Intensity Mapper is a long-duration balloon mission to study the history of cosmic star formation through intensity mapping at 240-420μm. The payload's KID spectrometer will be a technology pathfinder for Origins Space Telecope. Our group manages the TIM cryogenic system and contributes to detector design and forecasting.
"CMB - Stage 4", the next-generation ground-based obsevational program for CMB cosmology, will bring to bear data from multiple telescopes and observing sites to probe qualitatively new parameter space for fundamental physics and astrophysics. Our group pursues R&D activities in detectors, readout, cold optics, and analysis development.
The BICEP program has deployed a series of powerful refracting telescopes to the South Pole. These instruments have made the deepest (lowest-noise) maps to date of CMB polarization on degree angular scales, and set the most stringent constraints on primordial gravitational waves. The South Pole Observatory (SPO), a collaboration between BICEP and SPT, will bring unprecedented sensitivity to a broad range of CMB science.
Our group carries out a variety of technology R&D to enable new observations of the universe. Notable efforts include characterizing the cosmic ray response of CMB detectors for future space missions (PICO), detector and readout development for CMB-S4, and development of an on-chip KID spectrometer for THz observations (Origins Space Telecope).
Image: Terahertz vacuum waveguide resonator fabricated in the MNMS clean room at UIUC (Rong Nie).
There is now abundant evidence that the bulk of the universe's matter is in some dark form, not found the Standard Model of particle physics. Direct detection experiments seek to detect the interactions of particle dark matter in terrestrial detectors in ultra-low-radioactivity environments. As a Ph.D. student Prof. Filippini contributed to the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II), an underground experiment using semiconductor detectors.
Physics Ph.D. Student
CMB-S4
Astronomy Ph.D. Student
TIM
Physics Ph.D. Student
SPIDER, Taurus
Undergrad, Physics
SPIDER, TIM
Physics Ph.D. Student
SPO
Astronomy Ph.D. Student
Physics Ph.D. Student
TIM
Physics Ph.D. Student
TIM, THz devices
Undergrad, Astrophysics
TIM
Postdoc 2015-20
SPIDER, PICO
Northwestern University
Ph.D. 2023
TIM, THz devices
Ph.D. 2022
SPIDER, PICO, CMB-S4
Virtu Financial
Ph.D. 2023
SPIDER
U.T. Austin
B.S. 2021, UIUC
Ph.D. student, Cornell
B.S. 2024, Physics & MechSE, UIUC
Ph.D. student, Chicago
B.S. 2018, UIUC
Ph.D. student, UIUC
B.S. 2018, UIUC
Scientific Games Corp.
B.S. 2016, UIUC
Data scientist, IRI
B.S. 2020, UIUC
Ph.D. student, UI Chicago
B.S. 2016, UIUC
Ph.D. 2021, Harvard
Kairos Aerospace
B.S. 2020, UIUC
B.S. 2018, UIUC
Ph.D. student, U. Cincinnati
B.S. 2023, UIUC
Ph.D. student, RPI
B.S. 2018, UIUC
Ph.D. student, MIT
B.S. 2020, UIUC
Ph.D. student, U. Mass. Lowell
B.A. Astronomy, UIUC
B.S. 2019, UIUC
Data Engineer, Lundbeck
B.S. 2015, UIUC
Ph.D. 2022, UIUC
Undergrad, Michigan State
REU 2024
REU 2017
B.S. 2019, Illinois Institute of Technology
Ph.D. student, Penn State
REU 2022
Parkland College
REU 2023
B.S. 2024, Elmhurst College
REU 2018
B.A. 2020, Case Western
M.Music 2023, New England Conservatory
REU 2016
B.S. 2018, U. St. Thomas
Ph.D. student, LSU
REU 2019
B.S. 2020, U. Houston
Ph.D. student, Rochester
SPIDER
P.A.R. Ade et al., "Analysis of Polarized Dust Emission Using Data from the First Flight of SPIDER", submitted (2024)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "A Constraint on Primordial B-Modes from the First Flight of the SPIDER Balloon-Borne Telescope", Astrophys. J. 927, 174 (2022)
J.P. Filippini et al., "In-flight gain monitoring of SPIDER's transition-edge sensor arrays", J. Low Temp. Phys. (2022)
E.C. Shaw et al., "Design and pre-flight performance of SPIDER 280 GHz receivers", Proc. SPIE 11453 (2020)
R. Gualtieri, J.P. Filippini et al., "SPIDER: CMB polarimetry from the edge of space", J. Low Temp. Phys. 193, 1112 (2018)
J.M. Nagy et al., "A New Limit on CMB Circular Polarization from SPIDER", Astrophys. J. 844, 151 (2017)
A.S. Rahlin et al., "Pre-flight integration and characterization of the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope", Proc. SPIE 9153 (2014)
A.A. Fraisse et al., "SPIDER: probing the early universe with a suborbital polarimeter", JCAP 04, 047 (2013)
D.T. O'Dea et al., "Spider optimization II: Optical, Magnetic and Foreground Effects", Astrophys. J. 738, 63 (2011)
BICEP / Keck
P.A.R. Ade et al., Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves using Planck, WMAP, and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 151301 (2021)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "A Demonstration of Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves with Delensing", Phys. Rev. D 103, 022004 (2021)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "New bounds on anisotropies of CMB polarization rotation and implications for axion-like particles and primordial magnetic fields", Phys. Rev. D 96, 102003 (2017)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "Measurement of Gravitational Lensing from Large-Scale B-Mode Polarization", Astrophys. J. 833, 228 (2016)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "A Joint Analysis of BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck Data", Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 101301 (2015)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "Detection of B-mode Polarization at Degree Angular Scales by BICEP2 ", Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 241101 (2014)
Technology Development
R. Nie et al., A Vacuum Waveguide Filter Bank Spectrometer for Far-Infrared Astrophysics, J. Low Temp. Phys. (2024)
R. Nie et al., Absorber Design and Optimization of Kinetic Inductance Detectors for the Terahertz Intensity Mapper, J. Low Temp. Phys. 209, 525-533 (2022)
R. Nie et al., Optimization of a Quasi-Mesh Absorber for the Terahertz Intensity Mapper", IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Technol. 10 (6), 704-712 (2020)
B. Osherson et al., "Particle response of antenna-coupled TES arrays: results from SPIDER and the lab", J. Low Temp. Phys. 199, 1127 (2020)
A.S. Bergman et al., "280 GHz Focal Plane Unit Design and Characterization for the SPIDER-2 Suborbital Polarimeter", J. Low Temp. Phys. 193, 1075 (2018)
P.A.R. Ade et al., "Antenna-coupled TES bolometers used in BICEP2, Keck Array, and SPIDER", Astrophys. J. 812, 176 (2015)
Dark Matter
G. Baym, D.H. Beck, J.P. Filippini, C.J. Pethick, J. Shelton, "Searching for low mass dark matter via phonon creation in superfluid 4He", Phys. Rev. D 102, 035014 (2020)
R. Agnese et al., "Silicon detector results from the first five-tower run of CDMS II", Phys. Rev. D 88, 031104(R) (2013)
Z. Ahmed et al., "Dark matter search results from the CDMS II experiment", Science 327, 1619 (2010)
Z. Ahmed et al., "Search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles with the First Five-Tower Data from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search at the Soudan Underground Laboratory", Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 011301 (2009)
Our lab members have been featured in...
The Antarctic Sun (Mar. 2023).
The Illinois 2021 Art-Science Festival, with a video, SPIDER to the Stratosphere.
An educational video for Dark Matter Day by the U of I Physics department (Oct. 2017)
The Big Picture Science radio show and podcast (Jan. 2015)
Scientific American (Nov. 2014)
Professor Filippini has been an organizer of Astronomy on Tap Champaign-Urbana, and has presented in June 2016, Pygmalion 2017, and May 2021.
Professor Filippini has been a contributor to "Whys Guy Wednesdays", part of the Morning Show on WCIA3 TV, Wednesday mornings at 9:30.
Our lab is part of the Department of Physics in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We are part of the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU), and NCSA's Center for Astrophysical Surveys (CAPS). Our work is supported by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Prof. Filippini: 405 Loomis Lab
Group office: 494 Loomis Lab
Laboratories: 179, 487, & 497 Loomis Lab
Shipping address: MRL Shipping and Receiving, 104 S. Goodwin Ave., Room 190N, Urbana, IL 61801
Contact Professor Filippini (jpf@illinois.edu) if you're interested in joining our team. We currently (Fall 2024) have openings for postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates!