830 research outputs found
The Planck Low Frequency Instrument
The Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) of the "Planck Surveyor" ESA mission will
perform high-resolution imaging of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies
at four frequencies in the 30-100 GHz range. We review the LFI main scientific
objectives, the current status of the instrument design and the on-going effort
to develop software simulations of the LFI observations. In particular we
discuss the design status of the PLANCK telescope, which is critical for
reaching adequate effective angular resolution.Comment: 10 pages, Latex (use epsfig.sty); 4 Postscript figures; Astrophys.
Lett & Comm, in press. Proc. of the Conference: "The Cosmic Microwave
Background and the Planck Mission", Santander, Spain, 22-25 June 199
Trade-off between angular resolution and straylight contamination in CMB anisotropy experiments. II. Straylight evaluation
Satellite CMB anisotropy missions and new generation of balloon-borne and
ground experiments, make use of complex multi-frequency instruments at the
focus of a meter class telescope. Between 70 GHz and 300 GHz, where foreground
contamination is minimum, it is extremely important to reach the best trade-off
between the improvement of the angular resolution and the minimization of the
straylight contamination mainly due to the Galactic emission. We focus here, as
a working case, on the 30 and 100 GHz channels of the Planck Low Frequency
Instrument (LFI). We evaluate the GSC introduced by the most relevant Galactic
foreground components for a reference set of optical configurations. We show
that it is possible to improve the angular resolution of 5-7% by keeping the
overall GSC below the level of few microKelvin. A comparison between the level
of straylight introduced by the different Galactic components for different
beam regions is presented. Simple approximate relations giving the rms and
peak-to-peak levels of the GSC are provided. We compare the results obtained at
100 GHz with those at 30 GHz, where GSC is more critical. Finally, we compare
the results based on Galactic foreground templates derived from radio and IR
surveys with those based on WMAP maps including CMB and extragalactic source
fluctuations.Comment: Submitted to A&A. Quality of the figures was degraded for
size-related reason
High Performances Corrugated Feed Horns for Space Applications at Millimetre Wavelengths
We report on the design, fabrication and testing of a set of high performance
corrugated feed horns at 30 GHz, 70 GHz and 100 GHz, built as advanced
prototypes for the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) of the ESA Planck mission.
The electromagnetic designs include linear (100 GHz) and dual shaped (30 and 70
GHz) profiles. Fabrication has been achieved by direct machining at 30 GHz, and
by electro-formation at higher frequencies. The measured performances on side
lobes and return loss meet the stringent Planck requirements over the large
(20%) instrument bandwidth. Moreover, the advantage in terms of main lobe shape
and side lobes levels of the dual profiled designs has been demonstrated.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Experimental
Astronom
Prospective study of a molecular selection profile for RAS wild type colorectal cancer patients receiving irinotecan-cetuximab
Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate whether a panel of biomarkers, prospectively analysed might be able to predict patients' clinical outcome more accurately than RAS status alone. Methods: K-RAS (exons 2, 3, 4) wild type colorectal cancer patients, candidates to second/third-line cetuximab with chemotherapy were prospectively allocated into 2 groups on the basis of their profile: favourable (BRAF and PIK3CA exon 20 wild type, EGFR GCN ℠2.6, HER-3 Rajkumar score †8, IGF-1 immunostaining < 2) or unfavourable (any of the previous markers altered or mutated). After the introduction of N-RAS status (exons 2, 3, 4) only RAS wild type patients were considered eligible. Results: Forty-six patients were enrolled. Seventeen patients (37%) were allocated to the favourable and 29 patients (63%) to the unfavourable profile. RR in the favourable and unfavourable group was 11/17 (65%) and 2/29 (7%) (p = 0.007) respectively. The favourable group also showed an improved PFS (8months vs. 3months, p < 0.0001) and OS (15months vs. 6months, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our results suggest that prospective selection of optimal candidates for cetuximab treatment is feasible and may be able to improve clinical outcom
Planck Low Frequency Instrument: Beam Patterns
The Low Frequency Instrument on board the ESA Planck satellite is coupled to
the Planck 1.5 meter off-axis dual reflector telescope by an array of 27
corrugated feed horns operating at 30, 44, 70, and 100 GHz. We briefly present
here a detailed study of the optical interface devoted to optimize the angular
resolution (10 arcmin at 100 GHz as a goal) and at the same time to minimize
all the systematics coming from the sidelobes of the radiation pattern. Through
optical simulations, we provide shapes, locations on the sky, angular
resolutions, and polarization properties of each beam.Comment: On behalf of the Planck collaboration. 3 pages, 1 figure. Article
published in the Proceedings of the 2K1BC Experimental Cosmology at
millimetre wavelength
Upper Limits on the Continuum Emission from Geminga at 74 and 326 MHz
We report a search for radio continuum emission from the gamma-ray pulsar
Geminga. We have used the VLA to image the location of the optical counterpart
of Geminga at 74 and 326 MHz. We detect no radio counterpart. We derive upper
limits to the pulse-averaged flux density of Geminga, taking diffractive
scintillation into account. We find that diffractive scintillation is probably
quenched at 74 MHz and does not influence our upper limit, S < 56 mJy
(2\sigma), but that a 95% confidence level at 326 MHz is S < 5 mJy. Owing to
uncertainties on the other low-frequency detections and the possibility of
intrinsic variability or extrinsic variability (refractive interstellar
scintillation) or both, our non-detections are nominally consistent with these
previous detections.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX2e with AASTeX 4.0, 3 figures; to be published in Ap
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