414 research outputs found
Submillimeter mapping and analysis of cold dust condensations in the Orion M42 star forming complex
We present here the continuum submillimeter maps of the molecular cloud
around the M42 Nebula in the Orion region. These have been obtained in four
wavelength bands (200, 260, 360 and 580 microns) with the ProNaOS two meter
balloon-borne telescope. The area covered is 7 parsecs wide (50 arcmin at a
distance of 470 pc) with a spatial resolution of about 0.4 parsec. Thanks to
the high sensitivity to faint surface brightness gradients, we have found
several cold condensations with temperatures ranging from 12 to 17 K, within 3
parsecs of the dense ridge. The statistical analysis of the temperature and
spectral index spatial distribution shows an evidence of an inverse correlation
between these two parameters. Being invisible in the IRAS 100 micron survey,
some cold clouds are likely to be the seeds for future star formation activity
going on in the complex. We estimate their masses and we show that two of them
have masses higher than their Jeans masses, and may be gravitationally
unstable.Comment: 4 figures, The Astrophysical Journal, Main Journal, in pres
Submillimetre point sources from the Archeops experiment: Very Cold Clumps in the Galactic Plane
Archeops is a balloon-borne experiment, mainly designed to measure the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies at high angular resolution
(~ 12 arcminutes). By-products of the mission are shallow sensitivity maps over
a large fraction of the sky (about 30 %) in the millimetre and submillimetre
range at 143, 217, 353 and 545 GHz. From these maps, we produce a catalog of
bright submillimetre point sources. We present in this paper the processing and
analysis of the Archeops point sources. Redundancy across detectors is the key
factor allowing to sort out glitches from genuine point sources in the 20
independent maps. We look at the properties of the most reliable point sources,
totalling 304. Fluxes range from 1 to 10,000 Jy (at the frequencies covering
143 to 545 GHz). All sources are either planets (2) or of galactic origin.
Longitude range is from 75 to 198 degrees. Some of the sources are associated
with well-known Lynds Nebulae and HII compact regions in the galactic plane. A
large fraction of the sources have an IRAS counterpart. Except for Jupiter,
Saturn, the Crab and Cas A, all sources show a dust-emission-like modified
blackbody emission spectrum. Temperatures cover a range from 7 to 27 K. For the
coldest sources (T<10 K), a steep nu^beta emissivity law is found with a
surprising beta ~ 3 to 4. An inverse relationship between T and beta is
observed. The number density of sources at 353 GHz with flux brighter than 100
Jy is of the order of 1 per degree of Galactic longitude. These sources will
provide a strong check for the calibration of the Planck HFI focal plane
geometry as a complement to planets. These very cold sources observed by
Archeops should be prime targets for mapping observations by the Akari and
Herschel space missions and ground--based observatories.Comment: Version matching the published article (English improved). Published
in Astron. Astrophys, 21 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables Full article (with
complete tables) can be retrieved at
http://www.archeops.org/Archeops_Publicatio
Calibration and First light of the Diabolo photometer at the Millimetre and Infrared Testa Grigia Observatory
We have designed and built a large-throughput dual channel photometer,
Diabolo. This photometer is dedicated to the observation of millimetre
continuum diffuse sources, and in particular, of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect
and of anisotropies of the 3K background. We describe the optical layout and
filtering system of the instrument, which uses two bolometric detectors for
simultaneous observations in two frequency channels at 1.2 and 2.1 mm. The
bolometers are cooled to a working temperature of 0.1 K provided by a compact
dilution cryostat. The photometric and angular responses of the instrument are
measured in the laboratory. First astronomical light was detected in March 1995
at the focus of the new Millimetre and Infrared Testa Grigia Observatory (MITO)
Telescope. The established sensitivity of the system is of 7 mK_RJ s^1/2$. For
a typical map of at least 10 beams, with one hour of integration per beam, one
can achieve the rms values of y_SZ ~ 7 10^-5 and the 3K background anisotropy
Delta T/T ~ 7 10^-5, in winter conditions. We also report on a novel bolometer
AC readout circuit which allows for the first time total power measurements on
the sky. This technique alleviates (but does not forbid) the use of chopping
with a secondary mirror. This technique and the dilution fridge concept will be
used in future scan--modulated space instrument like the ESA Planck mission
project.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysics Supplement Serie
The NIKA instrument: results and perspectives towards a permanent KID based camera for the Pico Veleta observatory
The New IRAM KIDs Array (NIKA) is a pathfinder instrument devoted to
millimetric astronomy. In 2009 it was the first multiplexed KID camera on the
sky; currently it is installed at the focal plane of the IRAM 30-meters
telescope at Pico Veleta (Spain). We present preliminary data from the last
observational run and the ongoing developments devoted to the next NIKA-2
kilopixels camera, to be commissioned in 2015. We also report on the latest
laboratory measurements, and recent improvements in detector cosmetics and
read-out electronics. Furthermore, we describe a new acquisition strategy
allowing us to improve the photometric accuracy, and the related automatic
tuning procedure.Comment: 24th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, ISSTT
2013, April 8 to 10, 2013, Groningen, the Netherland
High resolution SZ observations at the IRAM 30-m telescope with NIKA
High resolution observations of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect
are necessary to allow the use of clusters of galaxies as a probe for large
scale structures at high redshifts. With its high resolution and dual-band
capability at millimeter wavelengths, the NIKA camera can play a significant
role in this context. NIKA is based on newly developed Kinetic Inductance
Detectors (KIDs) and operates at the IRAM 30m telescope, Pico Veleta, Spain. In
this paper, we give the status of the NIKA camera, focussing on the KID
technology. We then present observations of three galaxy clusters: RX
J1347.5-1145 as a demonstrator of the NIKA capabilities and the recent
observations of CL J1226.9+3332 (z = 0.89) and MACS J0717.5+3745 (z = 0.55). We
also discuss prospects for the final NIKA2 camera, which will have a 6.5
arcminute field of view with about 5000 detectors in two bands at 150 and 260
GHz
NIKA 2: next-generation continuum/polarized camera at the IRAM 30 m telescope and its prototype
NIKA 2 (New Instrument of Kids Array) is a next generation continuum and
polarized instrument successfully installed in October 2015 at the IRAM 30 m
telescope on Pico-Veleta (Granada, Spain). NIKA 2 is a high resolution
dual-band camera, operating with frequency multiplexed LEKIDs (Lumped Element
Kinetic Inductance Detectors) cooled at 100 mK. Dual color images are obtained
thanks to the simultaneous readout of a 1020 pixels array at 2 mm and 1140 x 2
pixels arrays at 1.15 mm with a final resolution of 18 and 12 arcsec
respectively, and 6.5 arcmin of Field of View (FoV). The two arrays at 1.15 mm
allow us to measure the linear polarization of the incoming light. This will
place NIKA 2 as an instrument of choice to study the role of magnetic fields in
the star formation process. The NIKA experiment, a prototype for NIKA 2 with a
reduced number of detectors (about 400 LEKIDs) and FoV (1.8 arcmin), has been
successfully operated at the IRAM 30 telescope in several open observational
campaigns. The performance of the NIKA 2 polarization setup has been
successfully validated with the NIKA prototype.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, proceeding for the conference: Extragalactic
radio surveys 201
Non-parametric deprojection of NIKA SZ observations: Pressure distribution in the Planck-discovered cluster PSZ1 G045.85+57.71
The determination of the thermodynamic properties of clusters of galaxies at
intermediate and high redshift can bring new insights into the formation of
large-scale structures. It is essential for a robust calibration of the
mass-observable scaling relations and their scatter, which are key ingredients
for precise cosmology using cluster statistics. Here we illustrate an
application of high resolution arcsec) thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ)
observations by probing the intracluster medium (ICM) of the \planck-discovered
galaxy cluster \psz\ at redshift , using tSZ data obtained with the
NIKA camera, which is a dual-band (150 and 260~GHz) instrument operated at the
IRAM 30-meter telescope. We deproject jointly NIKA and \planck\ data to extract
the electronic pressure distribution from the cluster core () to its outskirts () non-parametrically for the
first time at intermediate redshift. The constraints on the resulting pressure
profile allow us to reduce the relative uncertainty on the integrated Compton
parameter by a factor of two compared to the \planck\ value. Combining the tSZ
data and the deprojected electronic density profile from \xmm\ allows us to
undertake a hydrostatic mass analysis, for which we study the impact of a
spherical model assumption on the total mass estimate. We also investigate the
radial temperature and entropy distributions. These data indicate that \psz\ is
a massive ( M) cool-core cluster.
This work is part of a pilot study aiming at optimizing the treatment of the
NIKA2 tSZ large program dedicated to the follow-up of SZ-discovered clusters at
intermediate and high redshifts. (abridged)Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure
Detection of the tSZ effect with the NIKA camera
We present the first detection of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect
from a cluster of galaxies performed with a KIDs (Kinetic Inductance Detectors)
based instrument. The tSZ effect is a distortion of the black body CMB (Cosmic
Microwave Background) spectrum produced by the inverse Compton interaction of
CMB photons with the hot electrons of the ionized intra-cluster medium. The
massive, intermediate redshift cluster RX J1347.5-1145 has been observed using
NIKA (New IRAM KIDs arrays), a dual-band (140 and 240 GHz) mm-wave imaging
camera, which exploits two arrays of hundreds of KIDs: the resonant frequencies
of the superconducting resonators are shifted by mm-wave photons absorption.
This tSZ cluster observation demonstrates the potential of the next generation
NIKA2 instrument, being developed for the 30m telescope of IRAM, at Pico Veleta
(Spain). NIKA2 will have 1000 detectors at 140GHz and 2x2000 detectors at
240GHz, providing in that band also a measurement of the linear polarization.
NIKA2 will be commissioned in 2015.Comment: SF2A Proceedings 201
Latest NIKA results and the NIKA-2 project
NIKA (New IRAM KID Arrays) is a dual-band imaging instrument installed at the
IRAM (Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimetrique) 30-meter telescope at Pico
Veleta (Spain). Two distinct Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID) focal planes
allow the camera to simultaneously image a field-of-view of about 2 arc-min in
the bands 125 to 175 GHz (150 GHz) and 200 to 280 GHz (240 GHz). The
sensitivity and stability achieved during the last commissioning Run in June
2013 allows opening the instrument to general observers. We report here the
latest results, in particular in terms of sensitivity, now comparable to the
state-of-the-art Transition Edge Sensors (TES) bolometers, relative and
absolute photometry. We describe briefly the next generation NIKA-2 instrument,
selected by IRAM to occupy, from 2015, the continuum imager/polarimeter slot at
the 30-m telescope.Comment: Proceedings of Low Temperature Detectors 15 (LTD-15), Pasadena, June
201
High-resolution tSZ cartography of clusters of galaxies with NIKA at the IRAM 30-m telescope
The thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (tSZ) is a powerful probe to study
clusters of galaxies and is complementary with respect to X-ray, lensing or
optical observations. Previous arcmin resolution tSZ observations ({\it e.g.}
SPT, ACT and Planck) only enabled detailed studies of the intra-cluster medium
morphology for low redshift clusters (). Thus, the development of
precision cosmology with clusters requires high angular resolution observations
to extend the understanding of galaxy cluster towards high redshift. NIKA2 is a
wide-field (6.5 arcmin field of view) dual-band camera, operated at and containing KID (Kinetic Inductance Detectors), designed to
observe the millimeter sky at 150 and 260 GHz, with an angular resolution of 18
and 12 arcsec respectively. The NIKA2 camera has been installed on the IRAM
30-m telescope (Pico Veleta, Spain) in September 2015. The NIKA2 tSZ
observation program will allow us to observe a large sample of clusters (50) at
redshift ranging between 0.5 and 1. As a pathfinder for NIKA2, several clusters
of galaxies have been observed at the IRAM 30-m telescope with the NIKA
prototype to cover the various configurations and observation conditions
expected for NIKA2.Comment: Proceedings of the 28th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics,
Geneva, Switzerland, December 13-18, 201
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