Optical Design and Active Optics Methods in Astronomy

Optical designs for astronomy involve implementation of active optics and adaptive optics from X-ray to the infrared. Developments and results of active optics methods for telescopes, spectrographs and coronagraph planet finders are presented. The high accuracy and remarkable smoothness of surfaces generated by active optics methods also allow elaborating new optical design types with high aspheric and/or non-axisymmetric surfaces. Depending on the goal and performance requested for a deformable optical surface analytical investigations are carried out with one of the various facets of elasticity theory: small deformation thin plate theory, large deformation thin plate theory, shallow spherical shell theory, weakly conical shell theory. The resulting thickness distribution and associated bending force boundaries can be refined further with finite element analysis. Keywords: active optics, optical design, elasticity theory, astronomical optics, diffractive optics, X-ray optic

Heterogeneities in amorphous systems under shear

The last decade has seen major progresses in studies of elementary mechanisms of deformation in amorphous materials. Here, we start with a review of physically-based theories of plasticity, going back to the identification of "shear-transformations" as early as the 70's. We show how constructive criticism of the theoretical models permits to formulate questions concerning the role of structural disorder, mechanical noise, and long-ranged elastic interactions. These questions provide the necessary context to understand what has motivated recent numerical studies. We then summarize their results, show why they had to focus on athermal systems, and point out the outstanding questions.Comment: Chapter of "Dynamical Heterogeneities in glasses, colloids and granular materials", Eds.: L. Berthier, G. Biroli, J-P Bouchaud, L. Cipelletti and W. van Saarloos (Oxford University Press, to appear), more info at http://w3.lcvn.univ-montp2.fr/~lucacip/DH_book.ht

Waste management and household effort: toward an enhanced ADF policy

Advanced Disposal Fees (ADF) are rather popular in waste management policies, but they cease any waste reduction effort at the household level. We propose a waved ADF policy which enhances this system by giving to the households the possibility to sign a waste reduction contract in counterpart of a lower fee. These contracts satisfy an incentive, a budget balancing and a participation constraints. For these feasible contracts, we show that this enriched ADF policy is welfare improving and always induces a waste reduction e¤ort.Waste Management, Disposal Fee Policy, Household Effort, Contracts

A numerical exploration of Miranda's dynamical history

The Uranian satellite Miranda presents a high inclination (4.338{\deg}) and evidences of resurfacing. It is accepted since 20 years (e.g. Tittemore and Wisdom 1989, Malhotra and Dermott 1990) that this inclination is due to the past trapping into the 3:1 resonance with Umbriel. These last years there is a renewal of interest for the Uranian system since the Hubble Space Telescope permitted the detection of an inner system of rings and small embedded satellites, their dynamics being of course ruled by the main satellites. For this reason, we here propose to revisit the long-term dynamics of Miranda, using modern tools like intensive computing facilities and new chaos indicators (MEGNO and frequency map analysis). As in the previous studies, we find the resonance responsible for the inclination of Miranda and the secondary resonances associated, likely to have stopped the rise of Miranda's inclination at 4.5{\deg}. Moreover, we get other trajectories in which this inclination reaches 7{\deg}. We also propose an analytical study of the secondary resonances associated, based on the study by Moons and Henrard (1993).Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Toward waste management contracts

This paper deals with the cost of treatment of the ultimate waste, that is waste which cannot, in the absence of recycling opportunities, be reduced by a suitable taxation scheme. We propose a new way to handle this waste based on aWaste Management Contracts (WMC) which largely implicates the households in the cost reduction process. Within a set of feasible, i.e. budget balancing, incentive compatible and acceptable, contracts we characterize the optimal WMC and compare this system to a more standard one based on an Advanced and a Disposal FeeWaste Management, Disposal Fee Policy, Household Effort, Contracts

Dark Energy and the Return of the Phoenix Universe

In cyclic universe models based on a single scalar field (e.g., the radion determining the distance between branes in M-theory), virtually the entire universe makes it through the ekpyrotic smoothing and flattening phase, bounces, and enters a new epoch of expansion and cooling. This stable evolution cannot occur, however, if scale-invariant curvature perturbations are produced by the entropic mechanism because it requires two scalar fields (e.g., the radion and the Calabi-Yau dilaton) evolving along an unstable classical trajectory. In fact, we show here that an overwhelming fraction of the universe fails to make it through the ekpyrotic phase; nevertheless, a sufficient volume survives and cycling continues forever provided the dark energy phase of the cycle lasts long enough, of order a trillion years. Two consequences are a new role for dark energy and a global structure of the universe radically different from that of eternal inflation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

A New Redshift Interpretation

A nonhomogeneous universe with vacuum energy, but without spacetime expansion, is utilized together with gravitational and Doppler redshifts as the basis for proposing a new interpretation of the Hubble relation and the 2.7K Cosmic Blackbody Radiation.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX, no figure