Polarimetric calibration of a spectropolarimeter instrument with high precision: Sunrise chromospheric infrared spectropolarimeter (SCIP) for the sunrise iii balloon telescope

The Sunrise chromospheric infrared spectropolarimeter (SCIP) installed in the international balloon experiment sunrise iii will perform spectropolarimetric observations in the near-infrared band to measure solar photospheric and chromospheric magnetic fields simultaneously. The main components of SCIP for polarization measurements are a rotating wave plate, polarization beam splitters, and CMOS imaging sensors. In each of the sensors, SCIP records the orthogonal linearly polarized components of light. The polarization is later demodulated on-board. Each sensor covers one of the two distinct wavelength regions centered at 770 and 850 nm. To retrieve the proper circular polarization, the new parameter , defined as the 45° phase shifted component of Stokes in the modulation curve, is introduced. SCIP is aimed at achieving high polarization precision (1<3×10−4 of continuum intensity) to capture weak polarization signals in the chromosphere. The objectives of the polarization calibration test presented in this paper are to determine a response matrix of SCIP and to measure its repeatability and temperature dependence to achieve the required polarization precision. Tolerances of the response matrix elements were set after considering typical photospheric and chromospheric polarization signal levels. We constructed a feed optical system such that a telecentric beam can enter SCIP with the same -number as the light distribution instrument of the sunrise iii telescope. A wire-grid linear polarizer and achromatic wave plate were placed before SCIP to produce the known polarization. The obtained response matrix was close to the values expected from the design. The wavelength and spatial variations, repeatability, and temperature dependence of the response matrix were confirmed to be smaller than tolerances. © 2022 Optica Publishing Group.Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (JP18H05234); Max Planck Foundation; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (#80NSSC18K0934); ISAS/JAXA Small Mission-of Opportunity Program; Spanish Research Agency (RTI2018-096886-B-C5); Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program (SEV-2017-0709).Peer reviewe

SPGCam: A specifically tailored camera for solar observations

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Designing a new astronomical instrument typically challenges the available cameras on the market. In many cases, no camera can fulfill the requirements of the instrument in terms of photon budget, speed, and even interfaces with the rest of the instrument. In this situation, the only options are to either downgrade the performance of the instrument or design new cameras from scratch, provided it is possible to identify a compliant detector. The latter is the case of the SPGCams, the cameras developed to be used with the Tunable Magnetograph (TuMag) and the Sunrise Chromospheric Infrared spectroPolarimeter (SCIP) for the Sunrise iii mission. SPGCams have been designed, developed, and built entirely in-house by the Solar Physics Group (SPG) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC). We report here on the scientific rationale and system engineering requirements set by the two instruments that drove the development, as well as on the technical details and trade-offs used to fulfill the specifications. The cameras were fully verified before the flight, and results from the assembly and verification campaign are presented as well. SPGCams share the design, although some parametric features differentiate the visible cameras (for TuMag) and the IR ones (for SCIP). Even though they were specifically developed for the Sunrise iii mission, the robust and careful design makes them suitable for different applications in other astronomical instruments. © 2023 Orozco Suárez, Álvarez García, López Jiménez, Balaguer Jiménez, Hernández Expósito, Labrousse, Bailén, Bustamante Díaz, Bailón Martínez, Aparicio del Moral, Morales Fernández, Sánchez Gómez, Tobaruela Abarca, Moreno Mantas, Ramos Más, Pérez Grande, Piqueras Carreño, Katsukawa, Kubo, Kawabata, Oba, Rodríguez Valido, Magdaleno Castelló and Del Toro Iniesta.This work was funded by the Spanish MCIN/AEI, under projects RTI 2018-096886-B-C5, PID 2021-125325OB-C5, and PCI 2022-135009-2, and co-funded by European FEDER funds, “A way of making Europe,” under grants CEX 2021-001131-S and 10.13039/501100011033.Peer reviewe

Ductus arteriosus banding to regulate excessive pulmonary blood flow in a neonate with necrotizing enterocolitis and complex congenital heart disease, including pulmonary atresia and total anomalous pulmonary venous return : a case report

Background: Patients with right isomerism have accompanying complex congenital heart disease, which is characterized by pulmonary atresia and total anomalous pulmonary venous return. Balanced regulation of the systemic and pulmonary circulation is essential for successful management, especially for cases complicated with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Case presentation: A 6-day-old male neonate with a single ventricle, pulmonary atresia, patent ductus arteriosus (DA), and total anomalous pulmonary venous return associated with right isomerism was admitted because of dyspnea, cyanosis, and melena. The patient presented circulatory incompetence due to excessive pulmonary blood flow, resulting in NEC. The patient underwent DA banding and colectomy following continuous intravenous infusion of prostaglandin E1 at six days. Subsequently, his condition improved, reaching a systemic oxygen saturation of around 80%. He underwent a bidirectional Glenn procedure and closure of colectomy at the ages of 5 and 6 months, respectively. Conclusion: DA banding can be an alternative to placing an aortopulmonary shunt, which is conventional in patients with ductus-dependent pulmonary circulation, because DA banding is feasible without cardiopulmonary bypass

Development of a Method for Scaffold-Free Elastic Cartilage Creation

Microtia is a congenital aplasia of the auricular cartilage. Conventionally, autologous costal cartilage grafts are collected and shaped for transplantation. However, in this method, excessive invasion occurs due to limitations in the costal cartilage collection. Due to deformation over time after transplantation of the shaped graft, problems with long-term morphological maintenance exist. Additionally, the lack of elasticity with costal cartilage grafts is worth mentioning, as costal cartilage is a type of hyaline cartilage. Medical plastic materials have been transplanted as alternatives to costal cartilage, but transplant rejection and deformation over time are inevitable. It is imperative to create tissues for transplantation using cells of biological origin. Hence, cartilage tissues were developed using a biodegradable scaffold material. However, such materials suffer from transplant rejection and biodegradation, causing the transplanted cartilage tissue to deform due to a lack of elasticity. To address this problem, we established a method for creating elastic cartilage tissue for transplantation with autologous cells without using scaffold materials. Chondrocyte progenitor cells were collected from perichondrial tissue of the ear cartilage. By using a multilayer culture and a three-dimensional rotating suspension culture vessel system, we succeeded in creating scaffold-free elastic cartilage from cartilage progenitor cells

SUNRISE Chromospheric Infrared spectroPolarimeter (SCIP) for SUNRISE III: Scan mirror mechanism

Ground-Based and Airborne Telescopes VIII 2020; Virtual, Online; United States; 14 December 2020 through 22 December 2020; Code 166573.--Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering Volume 11445, 2020, Article number 114454FThe SUNRISE Chromospheric Infrared spectroPolarimeter (SCIP) is a balloon-borne long-slit spectrograph for SUNRISE III to precisely measure magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere. The scan mirror mechanism (SMM) is installed in the optical path to the entrance slit of the SCIP to move solar images focused on the slit for 2-dimensional mapping. The SMM is required to have (1) the tilt stability better than 0.035″ (3σ) on the sky angle for the diffraction-limited spatial resolution of 0.2″, (2) step response shorter than 32 msec for rapid scanning observations, and (3) good linearity (i.e. step uniformity) over the entire field-of-view (60″x60″). To achieve these performances, we have developed a flight-model mechanism and its electronics, in which the mirror tilt is controlled by electromagnetic actuators with a closed-loop feedback logic with tilt angles from gap-based capacitance sensors. Several optical measurements on the optical bench verified that the mechanism meets the requirements. In particular, the tilt stability achives better than 0.012″ (3σ). Thermal cycling and thermal vacuum tests have been completed to demonstrate the performance in the vacuum and the operational temperature range expected in the balloon flight. We found a small temperature dependence in the step uniformity and this dependence will be corrected to have 2-demensional maps with the sub-arcsec spatial accuracy in the data post-processing. © COPYRIGHT SPIE.The SUNRISE III project is funded in Japan by the ISAS/JAXA Small Mission-of-Opportunity program for novel solar observations, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18H05234 (PI:Y.Katsukawa), and NAOJ Research Coordination Committee, NINS. We would also thank significant technical support from the Advanced Technology Center (ATC), NAOJ