Planck pre-launch status: The HFI instrument, from specification to actual performance

Context. The High Frequency Instrument (HFI) is one of the two focal instruments of the Planck mission. It will observe the whole sky in six bands in the 100 GHz−1 THz range. Aims. The HFI instrument is designed to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with a sensitivity limited only by fundamental sources: the photon noise of the CMB itself and the residuals left after the removal of foregrounds. The two high frequency bands will provide full maps of the submillimetre sky, featuring mainly extended and point source foregrounds. Systematic effects must be kept at negligible levels or accurately monitored so that the signal can be corrected. This paper describes the HFI design and its characteristics deduced from ground tests and calibration. Methods. The HFI instrumental concept and architecture are feasible only by pushing new techniques to their extreme capabilities, mainly: (i) bolometers working at 100 mK and absorbing the radiation in grids; (ii) a dilution cooler providing 100 mK in microgravity conditions; (iii) a new type of AC biased readout electronics and (iv) optical channels using devices inspired from radio and infrared techniques. Results. The Planck-HFI instrument performance exceeds requirements for sensitivity and control of systematic effects. During ground-based calibration and tests, it was measured at instrument and system levels to be close to or better than the goal specification

Remark on lattice BRST invariance

A recently claimed resolution to the lattice Gribov problem in the context of chiral lattice gauge theories is examined. Unfortunately, I find that the old problem remains.Comment: 4 pages, plain TeX, presentation improved (see acknowledgments

On central tendency and dispersion measures for intervals and hypercubes

The uncertainty or the variability of the data may be treated by considering, rather than a single value for each data, the interval of values in which it may fall. This paper studies the derivation of basic description statistics for interval-valued datasets. We propose a geometrical approach in the determination of summary statistics (central tendency and dispersion measures) for interval-valued variables

Mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies with Herschel/SPIRE

The standard method of mapping the interstellar medium in a galaxy, by observing the molecular gas in the CO 1-0 line and the atomic gas in the 21-cm line, is largely limited with current telescopes to galaxies in the nearby universe. In this letter, we use SPIRE observations of the galaxies M99 and M100 to explore the alternative approach of mapping the interstellar medium using the continuum emission from the dust. We have compared the methods by measuring the relationship between the star-formation rate and the surface density of gas in the galaxies using both methods. We find the two methods give relationships with a similar dispersion, confirming that observing the continuum emission from the dust is a promising method of mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies

Parameter Estimation from Improved Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background from QUaD

We evaluate the contribution of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization spectra to cosmological parameter constraints. We produce cosmological parameters using high-quality CMB polarization data from the ground-based QUaD experiment and demonstrate for the majority of parameters that there is significant improvement on the constraints obtained from satellite CMB polarization data. We split a multi-experiment CMB data set into temperature and polarization subsets and show that the best-fit confidence regions for the ΛCDM six-parameter cosmological model are consistent with each other, and that polarization data reduces the confidence regions on all parameters. We provide the best limits on parameters from QUaD EE/BB polarization data and we find best-fit parameters from the multi-experiment CMB data set using the optimal pivot scale of k_p = 0.013 Mpc^(–1) to be {h^2Ω_c, h^2Ω_b, H_0, A_s, n_s, τ} = {0.113, 0.0224, 70.6, 2.29 × 10^(–9), 0.960, 0.086}

Engineered bamboo for structural applications

Bamboo is a rapidly renewable material that has many applications in construction. Engineered bamboo products result from processing the raw bamboo culm into a laminated composite, similar to glue-laminated timber products. These products allow the material to be used in standardised sections and have less inherent variability than the natural material. The present work investigates the mechanical properties of two types of commercially available products – bamboo scrimber and laminated bamboo sheets – and compares these to timber and engineered timber products. It is shown that engineered bamboo products have properties that are comparable to or surpass that of timber and timber-based products. Potential limitations to use in structural design are also discussed. The study contributes to a growing body of research on engineered bamboo and presents areas in which further investigation is needed.The presented work is supported by EPRSC Grant EP/K023403/1 and the Newton Trust, and forms part of a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of British Columbia (UBC).This is the published version. It was first published at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950061815001117

Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Millimeter-Wave Astrophysics

Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors (TKIDs) combine the excellent noise performance of traditional bolometers with a radio frequency (RF) multiplexing architecture that enables the large detector counts needed for the next generation of millimeter-wave instruments. Here we present dark prototype TKID pixels that demonstrate a noise equivalent power NEP = 2×10⁻¹⁷√W/Hz with a 1/f knee at 0.1 Hz, suitable for background-limited noise performance at 150 GHz from a ground-based site. We discuss the optimizations in the device design and fabrication techniques to realize optimal electrical performance and high quality factors at a bath temperature of 250 mK

Interplay between field-induced and frustration-induced quantum criticalities in the frustrated two-leg Heisenberg ladder

The antiferromagnetic Heisenberg two-leg ladder in the presence of frustration and an external magnetic field is a system that is characterized by two sorts of quantum criticalities, not only one. One criticality is the consequence of intrinsic frustration, and the other one is a result of the external magnetic field. So the behaviour of each of them in the presence of the other deserves to be studied. Using the Jordan-Wigner transformation in dimensions higher than one and bond-mean-field theory we examine the interplay between the field-induced and frustration-induced quantum criticalities in this system. The present work could constitute a prototype for those systems showing multiple, perhaps sometimes competing, quantum criticalities. We calculate several physical quantities like the magnetization and spin susceptibility as functions of field and temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to the Canadian Journal of Physic