Related papers: A Double Vacuum Window Mechanism for Space-borne A…
EBEX was a long-duration balloon-borne experiment to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The experiment had three frequency bands centered at 150, 250, and 410 GHz and was the first to use a kilo-pixel array of…
Balloon-borne astronomy is a unique tool that allows for a level of image stability and significantly reduced atmospheric interference without the often prohibitive cost and long development time-scale that are characteristic of space-borne…
Criteria for experimental observation of multi-dimensional optical solitons in media with saturable refractive nonlinearities are developed. The criteria are applied to actual material parameters (characterizing the cubic self-focusing and…
Recent work introduced a unified framework for steerable and directional wavelets in two and three dimensions that ensures many desirable properties, such as a multi-scale structure, fast transforms, and a flexible angular localization. We…
We explore a scheme for guiding cold atoms through a hollow Bessel beam generated by a single axicon and a lens from a 2D magneto-optical trap toward a science chamber. We compare the Bessel beam profiles measured along the optical axis to…
Polarization plays an important role in various time-domain astrophysics to understand the magnetic fields, geometry, and environments of spatially unresolved variable sources. In this paper we present the results of laboratory and on-sky…
We present an in-situ method to measure the birefringence of a single vacuum window by means of microwave spectroscopy on an ensemble of cold atoms. Stress-induced birefringence can cause an ellipticity in the polarization of an initially…
XEUS is a large area telescope aiming to rise X-ray Astronomy to the level of Optical Astronomy in terms of collecting areas. It will be based on two satellites, locked on a formation flight, one with the optics, one with the focal plane.…
The COsmic Foreground Explorer (COFE) is a balloon-borne microwave polarime- ter designed to measure the low-frequency and low-l characteristics of dominant diffuse polarized foregrounds. Short duration balloon flights from the Northern and…
We present a new model of the microwave sky in polarization that can be used to simulate data from CMB polarization experiments. We exploit the most recent results from the Planck satellite to provide an accurate description of the diffuse…
When exposed to intense electromagnetic fields, the quantum vacuum is expected to exhibit properties of a polarisable medium akin to a weakly nonlinear dielectric material. Various schemes have been proposed to measure such vacuum…
EBEX is a balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation. During its eleven day science flight in the Austral Summer of 2012, it operated 955 spider-web transition edge sensor (TES)…
Experiments provide a qualitative confirmation of significant absorption of a wide electromagnetic beam propagating along a thin conducting cylinder (the diameter of the cylinder can be orders of magnitude less than the beam waist width).…
Thin filters and gas tight windows are used in Space to protect sensitive X-ray detectors from out-of-band electromagnetic radiation, low-energy particles, and molecular contamination. Though very thin and made of light materials, filters…
We developed a vacuum generation system composed of a reciprocating compressor (3 tons of refrigeration) with an inverted-function that is ready to be hooked flexibly to a gas-tight container to create an evacuated enclosed atmosphere,…
Photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) and microscopy are highly demanded for exploring morphologically complex solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces under realistic conditions, but the very small electron mean free path inside the dense media…
The E and B Experiment (EBEX) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to probe polarization signals in the CMB resulting from primordial gravitational waves, gravitational lensing, and Galactic dust emission. EBEX completed an 11 day flight…
Measuring the faint polarization signal of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) not only requires high optical throughput and instrument sensitivity but also control over systematic effects. Polarimetric cameras or receivers used in this…
We report on an optical magnetometer enhanced by vacuum-squeezed light, employing an Mx magnetometer based on $^{87}$Rb vapor in a micrometer-scale cell (~100 $\mu$m). Using the well-established polarization self-rotation effect in a…
Cosmic-ray background fluxes were modeled based on existing measurements and theories and are presented here. The model, originally developed for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Balloon Experiment, covers the entire solid…