The Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE): Proposal to ESA's Cosmic Vision

The Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE) is a wide-field space imager whose primary goal is the study of dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision. For this purpose, DUNE is optimised for the measurement of weak gravitational lensing but will also provide complementary measurements of baryonic accoustic oscillations, cluster counts and the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect. Immediate auxiliary goals concern the evolution of galaxies, to be studied with unequalled statistical power, the detailed structure of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and the demographics of Earth-mass planets. DUNE is an Medium-class mission which makes use of readily available components, heritage from other missions, and synergy with ground based facilities to minimise cost and risks. The payload consists of a 1.2m telescope with a combined visible/NIR field-of-view of 1 deg^2. DUNE will carry out an all-sky survey, ranging from 550 to 1600nm, in one visible and three NIR bands which will form a unique legacy for astronomy. DUNE will yield major advances in a broad range of fields in astrophysics including fundamental cosmology, galaxy evolution, and extrasolar planet search. DUNE was recently selected by ESA as one of the mission concepts to be studied in its Cosmic Vision programme.Comment: Accepted in Experimental Astronom

Studies of CO oxidation on Pt/SnO2 catalyst in a surrogate CO2 laser facility

Samples of 1% Pt/SnO2 catalyst were exposed to a stoichiometric gas mixture of 1% CO and 1.2% O2 in helium over a range of flowrates from 5 to 15 sccm and temperatures from 338 to 394 Kelvin. Reaction rate constants for the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide and their temperature dependence were determined and compared with previous literature values

On abstract commensurators of groups

We prove that the abstract commensurator of a nonabelian free group, an infinite surface group, or more generally of a group that splits appropriately over a cyclic subgroup, is not finitely generated. This applies in particular to all torsion-free word-hyperbolic groups with infinite outer automorphism group and abelianization of rank at least 2. We also construct a finitely generated, torsion-free group which can be mapped onto Z and which has a finitely generated commensurator.Comment: 13 pages, no figur

Boundary sentinels in cylindrical domains

We study a model describing vibrations of a cylindrical domain with thickness e > 0. A characteristic of this model is that it contains “pollution terms” in the boundary data and “missing terms” in the initial data. The “method of sentinels” of J.L. Lions [7] is followed to construct a sentinel using the observed vibrations on the boundary. Such a sentinel, by construction, provides information on pollution terms independent of missing terms. This requires resolution of initial-boundary value problems with nonzero boundary data of mixed type and an exact controllability problem. Further, we characterize so called “stealthy pollution terms” present in the model

Exact controllability of vibrations of thin bodies

In this paper, we address the problem of exact controllability of the wave equation in three dimensional domains which are thin in one direction. We prove the existence of exact controls and analyze their asymptotic behaviour as thickness parameter goes to zero. We characterize their limit as the solution of an exact controllability problem in two dimension

Boundary sentinels in cylindrical domains

We study a model describing vibrations of a cylindrical domain with thickness e > 0. A characteristic of this model is that it contains "pollution terms" in the boundary data and "missing terms" in the initial data. The "method of sentinels'' of J.L. Lions [7] is followed to construct a sentinel using the observed vibrations on the boundary. Such a sentinel, by construction, provides information on pollution terms independent of missing terms. This requires resolution of initial-boundary value problems with non-zero boundary data of mixed type and an exact controllability problem. Further, we characterize so called "stealthy pollution terms" present in the model