CONCERTO: Instrument model of Fourier transform spectroscopy, white-noise components

Modern astrophysics relies on intricate instrument setups to meet the demands of sensitivity, sky coverage, and multi-channel observations. An example is the CONCERTO project, employing advanced technology like kinetic inductance detectors and a Martin-Puplett interferometer. This instrument, installed at the APEX telescope atop the Chajnantor plateau, began commissioning observations in April 2021. Following a successful commissioning phase that concluded in June 2021, CONCERTO was offered to the scientific community for observations, with a final observing run in December 2022. CONCERTO boasts an 18.5 arcmin field of view and a spectral resolution down to 1.45 GHz in the 130-310 GHz electromagnetic band. We developed a comprehensive instrument model of CONCERTO inspired by Fourier transform spectrometry principles to optimize performance and address systematic errors. This model integrates instrument noises, subsystem characteristics, and celestial signals, leveraging both physical data and simulations. Our methodology involves delineating simulation components, executing on-sky simulations, and comparing results with real observations. The resulting instrument model is pivotal, enabling a precise error correction and enhancing the reliability of astrophysical insights obtained from observational data. In this work, we focus on the description of three white-noise noise components included in the instrument model that characterize the white-noise level: the photon, the generation-recombination, and the amplifier noises.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, Proceeding of the SPIE conference Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy XII, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 202

Acoustic propagation in random media using polynomial chaos expansions

International audienceSound propagation in the atmosphere is highly dependent on the information to specify the waveguide parameters. For real-world applications, there is considerable uncertainty regarding this information, and it is more realistic to consider the wind and temperature profiles as random functions, with associated probability distribution functions. Even though the numerical methods currently-in-use allow accurate results for a given atmosphere, high dimensionality of the random functions severely limits the ability to compute the random process representing the acoustic field, and some form of sampling reduction is necessary. In this work we use polynomial chaos (gPC)-based metamodels to represent the effect of large-scale features onto the acoustic normal modes. The impact of small-scale atmospheric structures is modelled using a perturbative approach of the coupling matrix. This two-level approach allows to estimate the statistical influence of each mode as the frequency varies. An excellent agreement is obtained with the gPC-based propagation model, with a few realizations of the random process, when compared with the Monte Carlo approach, with its thousands of realizations

La démocratie à l'épreuve du conflit

Poser la question de la place et de la valeur du conflit en démocratie n’est pas inédit. La philosophie politique au XXe siècle le fait déjà abondamment, tant pour contester le consensualisme de la démocratie délibérative, que pour interroger les limites du libéralisme sur la question des dangers que représentent les conflits radicaux, et proposer, de manière très diverse, une valorisation de l’agonistique. Pour autant, de nombreux événements récents, notamment des mouvements sociaux contestataires, reposent cette question avec acuité. Est-ce à dire que l’on assiste à une intensification des conflits sociaux de nos jours, et ce pour le bien de nos démocraties ? Le conflit peut-il, de manière pertinente, servir de principe politique ? Les contributions qui suivent ont la particularité d’interroger la conflictualité démocratique contemporaine soit directement, soit de manière plus large en la liant à des questions plus anciennes – révélant ainsi toute sa complexité. Questions regarding the role and value of social conflict in democracy are nothing new. This issue has been extensively discussed in 20th century political philosophy, where scholars have brought into question the consensualism of deliberative democracy as well as the limited ways in which liberalism responds to real crises. They have proposed, in various ways, agonism as a viable and valuable alternative. Moreover, contemporary social movements renew the call for more analysis on the role of social conflict. Are we facilitating an intensification of social conflict in our present day? Does this act in the interests of democracy? Can conflict serve a political principal? The following contributions examine the democratic potential of agonism, either directly or through a broader approach that engages longstanding questions in the field – revealing its complexity

CONCERTO : Digital processing for finding and tuning LEKIDs

We describe the on-line algorithms developed to probe Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKID) in this paper. LEKIDs are millimeter wavelength detectors for astronomy. LEKID arrays are currently operated in different instruments as: NIKA2 at the IRAM telescope in Spain, KISS at the Teide Observatory telescope in Tenerife, and CONCERTO at the APEX 12-meter telescope in Chile. LEKIDs are superconducting microwave resonators able to detect the incoming light at millimeter wavelengths and they are well adapted for frequency multiplexing (currently up to 360 pixels on a single microwave guide). Nevertheless, their use for astronomical observations requires specific readout and acquisition systems both to deal with the instrumental and multiplexing complexity, and to adapt to the observational requirements (e.g. fast sampling rate, background variations, on-line calibration, photometric accuracy, etc). This paper presents the different steps of treatment from identifying the resonance frequency of each LEKID to the continuous automatic control of drifting LEKID resonance frequencies induced by background variations

CONCERTO : Digital processing for finding and tuning LEKIDs

We describe the on-line algorithms developed to probe Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKID) in this paper. LEKIDs are millimeter wavelength detectors for astronomy. LEKID arrays are currently operated in different instruments as: NIKA2 at the IRAM telescope in Spain, KISS at the Teide Observatory telescope in Tenerife, and CONCERTO at the APEX 12-meter telescope in Chile. LEKIDs are superconducting microwave resonators able to detect the incoming light at millimeter wavelengths and they are well adapted for frequency multiplexing (currently up to 360 pixels on a single microwave guide). Nevertheless, their use for astronomical observations requires specific readout and acquisition systems both to deal with the instrumental and multiplexing complexity, and to adapt to the observational requirements (e.g. fast sampling rate, background variations, on-line calibration, photometric accuracy, etc). This paper presents the different steps of treatment from identifying the resonance frequency of each LEKID to the continuous automatic control of drifting LEKID resonance frequencies induced by background variations

CONCERTO: Digital processing for finding and tuning LEKIDs

International audienceWe describe the on-line algorithms developed to probe Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKID) in this paper. LEKIDs are millimeter wavelength detectors for astronomy. LEKID arrays are currently operated in different instruments as: NIKA2 at the IRAM telescope in Spain, KISS at the Teide Observatory telescope in Tenerife, and CONCERTO at the APEX 12-meter telescope in Chile. LEKIDs are superconducting microwave resonators able to detect the incoming light at millimeter wavelengths and they are well adapted for frequency multiplexing (currently up to 360 pixels on a single microwave guide). Nevertheless, their use for astronomical observations requires specific readout and acquisition systems both to deal with the instrumental and multiplexing complexity, and to adapt to the observational requirements (e.g. fast sampling rate, background variations, on-line calibration, photometric accuracy, etc). This paper presents the different steps of treatment from identifying the resonance frequency of each LEKID to the continuous automatic control of drifting LEKID resonance frequencies induced by background variations