We are currently living in one of the most dramatic times, both technologically and cosmologically. We now realize that the Universe is expanding in an accelerating manner due to the effects of dark energy. These effects were hidden until recent times because dark energy has only recently dominated the energy budget of the Universe. Also, we finally have telescopes powerful enough to execute surveys that can place limits on the equation of state of dark energy. The primary goal of the recently built South Pole Telescope (SPT) is to understand the nature of this dark energy by measuring the structure formation history of the Universe. We are doing so through the construction of a large, mass limited, catalog of galaxy clusters, whose numbers as a function of redshift are critically dependent on the expansion history of the Universe.
This dissertation explains critical design choices made by the SPT to enable such an ambitious survey. In addition, we describe the design, construction, and testing of the cold secondary optics which represents the hardware contribution unique to this dissertation.
We also describe two analysis techniques used to identify cluster candidates in the SPT data. One such method, the matched filter, was used to obtain the SPT's first results, which are the first clusters discovered with an SZ experiment. The second method explored is an alternative cluster finder that could be used in concert with, or as a replacement for the matched filter.