EMBRACE@Nancay: An Ultra Wide Field of View Prototype for the SKA

A revolution in radio receiving technology is underway with the development of densely packed phased arrays for radio astronomy. This technology can provide an exceptionally large field of view, while at the same time sampling the sky with high angular resolution. Such an instrument, with a field of view of over 100 square degrees, is ideal for performing fast, all-sky, surveys, such as the "intensity mapping" experiment to measure the signature of Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in the HI mass distribution at cosmological redshifts. The SKA, built with this technology, will be able to do a billion galaxy survey. I will present a very brief introduction to radio interferometry, as well as an overview of the Square Kilometre Array project. This will be followed by a description of the EMBRACE prototype and a discussion of results and future plans.Comment: to appear in proceedings of the INFIERI Summer School INtelligent Signal Processing for FrontIEr Research and Industry, Paris 201

DWDM-PON/mm-Wave wireless converged Next Generation Access Topology using coherent heterodyne detection

A radio-over-fibre system using coherent optical heterodyne detection scheme is proposed, to achieve seamless integration of a photonic Remote Antenna Unit (RAU) into a Next Generation Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexed Passive Optical Network (NG DWDM-PON). The proposed scheme significantly simplifies the optical mm-wave generation and data recovery as it doesn't require any high-bandwidth modulator at the central office or high-frequency Local Oscillators (LOs) at either the central office or the customer unit; or optical phase-locking techniques to generate the mm-wave wireless signal. A proof-of-concept transmission utilizing 1 Gb/s On-Off Keying is experimentally demonstrated

Black hole lasers, a mode analysis

We show that the black hole laser effect discovered by Corley & Jacobson should be described in terms of frequency eigenmodes that are spatially bound. The spectrum contains a discrete and finite set of complex frequency modes which appear in pairs and which encode the laser effect. In addition, it contains real frequency modes that form a continuous set when space is infinite, and which are only elastically scattered, i.e., not subject to any Bogoliubov transformation. The quantization is straightforward, but the calculation of the asymptotic fluxes is rather involved. When the number of complex frequency modes is small, our expressions differ from those given earlier. In particular, when the region between the horizons shrinks, there is a minimal distance under which no complex frequency mode exists, and no radiation is emitted. Finally, we relate this effect to other dynamical instabilities found for rotating black holes and in electric fields, and we give the conditions to get this type of instability.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, main changes: new figure and new Sec.6 `conditions for having a laser effect', final version accepted in PR

Characterization of a dense aperture array for radio astronomy

EMBRACE@Nancay is a prototype instrument consisting of an array of 4608 densely packed antenna elements creating a fully sampled, unblocked aperture. This technology is proposed for the Square Kilometre Array and has the potential of providing an extremely large field of view making it the ideal survey instrument. We describe the system,calibration procedures, and results from the prototype.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in A&

Low prevalence of coagulation F2 and F5 polymorphisms in mothers and children in a large cohort of patients with neonatal arterial ischemic stroke

International audienc

State of the Sub-surface Microstructure of Carbides strengthened cast Superalloys after High Temperature Oxidation -Use of Thermodynamic Modelling for a better Understanding

International audienceSeveral cast strengthened superalloys, Ni base and Co base, were exposed to high temperature oxidation for long times and metallographically examined. Different phenomena occurred in the sub-surface microstructure, depending on both alloy and temperature. Thermodynamic modelling was used to know what it happened for carbon during oxidation, then to explain the observed microstructural changes. It appears that carbon atoms either quit the alloy probably after its oxidation into gases, or on the contrary go deeper into the bulk where they promote the precipitation of new carbides by solid state transformation. Thereafter, thermodynamic modelling allowed to know the new local refractoriness of the zones affected by oxidation, then to appreciate the new mechanical properties in the sub-surface

Space-time correlations in inflationary spectra, a wave packet analysis

The inflationary mechanism of mode amplification predicts that the state of each mode with a given wave vector is correlated to that of its partner mode with the opposite vector. This implies nonlocal correlations which leave their imprint on temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Their spatial properties are best revealed by using local wave packets. This analysis shows that all density fluctuations giving rise the large scale structures originate in pairs which are born near the reheating. In fact each local density fluctuation is paired with an oppositely moving partner with opposite amplitude. To obtain these results we first apply a ``wave packet transformation'' with respect to one argument of the two point correlation function. A finer understanding of the correlations is then reached by making use of coherent states. The knowledge of the velocity field is required to extract the contribution of a single pair of wave packets. Otherwise, there is a two-folded degeneracy which gives three aligned wave packets arising from two pairs. The applicability of these methods to observational data is briefly discussed.Comment: revised version, accepted for publication in PRD ; the complementarity and the usefullness of wave packet analysis have been emphasized ; 32 pages, 6 figure

Fragmentation Dynamics of H2S Following S 2p Photoexcitation

The fragmentation dynamics of core-excited H2S has been studied by means of partial anion and cation yield measurements around the S L2,3-subshell ionization thresholds. All detectable ionic fragments are reported, and significant differences between partial ion yields are observed. Possible dissociation pathways are discussed by comparison to previous studies of electron spectra