First Results from the Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET)

The Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET) is a large-angular-scale telescope designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background from the Atacama Desert, Chile and to place direct, competitive limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio (which parameterizes primordial inflationary B modes) using solely polarization information. We have used QUIET to observe $\approx$~1000\,sq.~deg.~of low-foreground sky at 43 (Q band) and 95\,GHz (W band) between October 2008 and December 2010, collecting some 10000\,hours of data in that time. The integrity of the Q-band data analysis has been verified with an extensive suite of jackknife tests for nullity, and by comparing results from two independent (and blind) analysis pipelines. I shall give an overview of QUIET and present the first power-spectrum results from the Q-band data set, including the E-mode power spectrum, a limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and the detection of polarized Galactic synchroton emission away from the Galactic plane.