Meeting at CESR on the Projects ELISA and Submillimetron

2002 March 11-15
The Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements (CESR)
Toulouse, France

Program

ELISA balloon experiment, cooperation in bolometers and other fields

Submillimetron project and perspectives of bolometric submillimeter sky surveys.

CESR participation in other projects and possible cooperation in them.

CESR experimental hardware (balloon instrumentations, laboratory experiment PIRENEA)

Perspective of cooperation in technology (Europe programs, electronics, cryogenics, etc.)

Participants

Vladimir Gromov, Chalmers, Sweden, Astro Space Center, Russia, project "Submillimetron"

Claude Meny, CESR, ELISA, detectors, interstellar dust properties

Martin Giard, CESR, head of DST Cold Universe, Planck WG 7.0

Dominique Lequeau, CESR director

Isabelle Ristorcelli, CESR, ELISA, Planck WG 7.1

Christine Joblin-Toublanc, CESR, experiment PIRENEA

Xavier Dupac, CESR, astrophysics, cosmology, image reconstruction

ELISA - Experiment for Large Infrared Survey Astronomy

ELISA is the project of balloon sky survey in 4 photometric bands: 170, 240, 400 and 650 mkm.
The goal of the survey: maping of large fraction of the Milky way (12% of full sky), detection >10³ point sources.
Angular resolution of 3.5 arc-minutes in each band.
Bolomerer array 16x32 pixel in each band.
Bolometer element NEP = 8 10^-17 W/Hz^1/2.
(all internal noises including multiplexing )
3 flights in the period from 2004 to 2006 (2007)
Bolometer arrays (2 assemblies for 2 bands each) have the following interfaces with instrument:
- Front-end (optical) determined by primary mirror (to be supplied by Danemark, DSRI) and by cold optics in He cryostat (to be supplied by Netherlands, SSD/ESTEC);
- 2 K cold plate in He cryostat, main mechanical interface and intermediate electrical connectors;
- 0.3 K cool link with He3 closed cycle fridge (Service d'Aeronomie du CNRS)
- Back-end is digital output (after ADC) to on-board computer (DSRI). Sampling rate 40 Hz, number of channels (after arrays MUX) 4x32 = 128 and a few service channels (mainly temperatures).
CESR has a high interest for use NHEB arrays in test flights for comparison with CEA array, and for verification of NHEB potential of radical improvement in sensitivity declared by Chalmers and Caltech groups. Formal decision on this subject can be made not earlier than the CNES decision on ELISA funding. For using NHEB arrays in ELISA instrument the array assemblies and their electronics must have interfaces mentioned above in agreement with ELISA specifications.

Submillimeter space telescope project - Submillimetron

Invited talk, 2002 March 12. Topics of presentation:

Cryogenic telescope using fascilities of International Space Station, low cost approach;
Full-sky survey in submillimeter and millimeter wave region as fundamental astronomical task of near future;
NHEB detectors in Chalmers, their merits in comparision with JPL-Caltech (Ge and TES) bolometers for astronomy;
Extremely high sensitivity of the survey on the level limited by extraterrestrial background in its spectral minimum.

PIRENEA - Piège à Ions pour la Recherche et l'Etude de Nouvelles Espèces Astrochimiques
(Trap of Ions for Research of New Astrochimiques Species)

PIRENEA is an original experiment of laboratory intended to study physics and chemistry of interstellar and cometary matter in connection with the astronomical observations. Disposer au CESR d'une expérience originale permettant de simuler en laboratoire la physico-chimie interstellaire, circumstellaire, et cométaire impliquant des espèces intermédiaires entre les molécules simples et les grains classiques (0.1 µm). Il s'agit de complexes moléculaires de grande taille (composés aromatiques, complexes organométalliques, molécules prébiotiques) et de petits grains (grains métalliques, grains mixtes carbone/métal et silicates).
The technique used is a cell Ion Resonance Cyclotron with analysis by mass spectrometry (FTMS). The species are trapped under the combined action of a magnetic field and a quadripolar electric field. The experiment has a superconductive magnet (5 Tesla), an enclosure with ultra-high vacuum with cryogenic screens, a laser of ablation (Nd:YAG) for the production of particles and an electronics for detection and of spectroscopy.

Current space and balloon projects

CESR participate in the following current submillimeter-wave space telescopes progects

Swedish submillimeter satellite Odin;
French balloon submillimeter experiment Archeops (launches from Kiruna, Sweden);
ESA projects Planck and Herschel.

Perspectives for cooperation:

Scientific cooperation in Submillimetron project taking into account coincidence of general astronomic objectives, simiarity of observational techniques and complementarty of Submillimetron, ELISA, Planck and Herschel experiments;

Cooperation in NHEB bolometer arrays with perspective of application in post ELISA experiments, future spectral-line balloon survey;

Cooperation in interstellar dust emission analysis for PRONAOS data interpretation and Planck experiment (low temperature tunnel effects in nanoscopic clusters of silicates, carbon-rich molecules and metal);

Cooperation in 6FP proposal with Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), Kiruna, Rickard Lundin;

Cooperation in SQUID electronics development.

The Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements (CESR) is the laboratory of space astrophysics.
CESR is located in the campus of the aerospace complex of Toulouse Lespinet in vicinity of CNES (The French Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and LAAS (Laboratory of Automatic Control and Space Applications including Microsystems and Systems Integration, Technology of Micro and Nanostructures).
CESR missions: research in astrophysics and instrumental developments.
CESR is a unit of CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research).
The CESR is organized in three scientific and technical departments (DST):
- Solar system DST (space plasma and planetology)
- High Energies DST (X-ray and gamma)
- Cold Universe DST (far IR and submillimeter)