Characterization of causes of signal phase and frequency instability Final report

Characteristic instabilities in phase and frequency errors of reference oscillator

Current Density Imaging through Acoustically Encoded Magnetometry: A Theoretical Exploration

The problem of determining a current density confined to a volume from measurements of the magnetic field it produces exterior to that volume is known to have non-unique solutions. To uniquely determine the current density, or the non-silent components of it, additional spatial encoding of the electric current is needed. In biological systems such as the brain and heart, which generate electric current associated with normal function, a reliable means of generating such additional encoding, on a spatial and temporal scale meaningful to the study of such systems, would be a boon for research. This paper explores a speculative method by which the required additional encoding might be accomplished, on the time scale associated with the propagation of sound across the volume of interest, by means of the application of a radially encoding pulsed acoustic spherical wave

Sine-Gordon breathers generation in driven long Josephson junctions

We consider a long Josephson junction excited by a suitable external ac-signal, in order to generate control and detect breathers. Studying the nonlinear supratransmission phenomenon in a nonlinear sine-Gordon chain sinusoidally driven, Geniet and Leon explored the bifurcation of the energy transmitted into the chain and calculated a threshold $A (\omega)$ for the external driving signal amplitude, at which the energy flows into the system by breathers modes. I numerically study the continuous sine-Gordon model, describing the dynamics of the phase difference in a long Josephson junction, in order to deeply investigate the "continuous limit" modifications to this threshold. Wherever the energy flows into the system due to the nonlinear supratransmission, a peculiar breather localization areas appear in a $(A, \omega)$ parameters space. The emergence of these areas depends on the damping parameter value, the bias current, and the waveform of driving external signal. The robustness of generated breathers is checked by introducing into the model a thermal noise source to mimic the environmental fluctuations. Presented results allows one to consider a cryogenic experiment for creation and detection of Josephson breathers.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Stabilized high-power laser system for the gravitational wave detector advanced LIGO

An ultra-stable, high-power cw Nd:YAG laser system, developed for the ground-based gravitational wave detector Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), was comprehensively characterized. Laser power, frequency, beam pointing and beam quality were simultaneously stabilized using different active and passive schemes. The output beam, the performance of the stabilization, and the cross-coupling between different stabilization feedback control loops were characterized and found to fulfill most design requirements. The employed stabilization schemes and the achieved performance are of relevance to many high-precision optical experiments

Photon noise in a random laser amplifier with fluctuating properties

We study fluctuations of the number of photocounts measured by an ideal photodetector illuminated by light scattered in an amplifying disordered medium, below the threshold for random lasing. We show that the variance of fluctuations and their correlation function carry information about fluctuating properties of the medium. A direct link is established between the fluctuations of the number of photocounts due to the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and the dimensionless conductance g of the medium. Our results suggest a possibility of probing amplifying disordered media by analyzing statistics of their ASE, without illuminating them from outside by a probe beam.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Noise control by sonic crystal barriers made of recycled materials

A systematic study of noise barriers based on sonic crystals made of cylinders that use recycled materials like absorbing component is here reported. The barriers consist of only three rows of perforated metal shells filled with rubber crumb. Measurements of reflectance and transmittance by these barriers are reported. Their attenuation properties result from a combination of sound absorption by the rubber crumb and reflection by the periodic distribution of scatterers. It is concluded that porous cylinders can be used as building blocks whose physical parameters can be optimized in order to design efficient barriers adapted to different noisy environments

Quantum Theory of Flicker Noise in Metal Films

Flicker (1/f^gamma) voltage noise spectrum is derived from finite-temperature quantum electromagnetic fluctuations produced by elementary charge carriers in external electric field. It is suggested that deviations of the frequency exponent \gamma from unity, observed in thin metal films, can be attributed to quantum backreaction of the conducting medium on the fluctuating field of the charge carrier. This backreaction is described phenomenologically in terms of the effective momentum space dimensionality, D. Using the dimensional continuation technique, it is shown that the combined action of the photon heat bath and external field results in a 1/f^gamma-contribution to the spectral density of the two-point correlation function of electromagnetic field. The frequency exponent is found to be equal to 1 + delta, where delta = 3 - D is a reduction of the momentum space dimensionality. This result is applied to the case of a biased conducting sample, and a general expression for the voltage power spectrum is obtained which possesses all characteristic properties of observed flicker noise spectra. The range of validity of this expression covers well the whole measured frequency band. Gauge independence of the power spectrum is proved. It is shown that the obtained results naturally resolve the problem of divergence of the total noise power. A detailed comparison with the experimental data on flicker noise measurements in metal films is given.Comment: 20 pages, 2 tables, 2 figure

SPIDER: a balloon-borne CMB polarimeter for large angular scales

We describe SPIDER, a balloon-borne instrument to map the polarization of the millimeter-wave sky with degree angular resolution. Spider consists of six monochromatic refracting telescopes, each illuminating a focal plane of large-format antenna-coupled bolometer arrays. A total of 2,624 superconducting transition-edge sensors are distributed among three observing bands centered at 90, 150, and 280 GHz. A cold half-wave plate at the aperture of each telescope modulates the polarization of incoming light to control systematics. Spider's first flight will be a 20-30-day Antarctic balloon campaign in December 2011. This flight will map \sim8% of the sky to achieve unprecedented sensitivity to the polarization signature of the gravitational wave background predicted by inflationary cosmology. The Spider mission will also serve as a proving ground for these detector technologies in preparation for a future satellite mission.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures; as published in the conference proceedings for SPIE Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V (2010