A design study of a CMB polarization satellite Sampan and bolometric camera developments

There is a strong theoretical case for measuring the primordial gravitational wave background that is expected in inflation-based Big Bang scenario. A promising route is via the polarization B-modes of the CMB anisotropies. We discuss a recent design study called Sampan for a moderate angular resolution (20 arcmin. at 217 GHz) but highly sensitive (5 μK arcmin.) polarization mapper satellite. In parallel, we describe recent efforts in France to build bolometric cameras.