Related papers: Skipper-CCDs: current applications and future
Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s; by the 1970s, it was realized that kilometer-scale neutrino detectors were required. The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data. The IceCube…
New Experiments With Spheres-Gas (NEWS-G) is a direct dark matter detection experiment using Spherical Proportional Counters (SPCs) with light noble gases to search for low-mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). We report the…
We describe the overall characteristics and the performance of an optical CCD camera system, Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN), which is being used at the 2.1 m Otto Struve Telescope of the McDonald Observatory since 2010…
Large astronomical instruments using tens to hundreds of optical or infrared science detectors pose specific challenges for detector control, where, in addition to performance, other engineering aspects like scalability, power consumption,…
The CRESST experiment seeks hypothetical WIMP particles that could account for the bulk of dark matter in the Universe. The detectors are cryogenic calorimeters in which WIMPs would scatter elastically on nuclei, releasing phonons. The…
The possibility of using CCD detectors in a low threshold direct detection dark matter search experiment is discussed. We present the main features of the DECam detectors that make them a good alternative for such an experiment, namely…
Upcoming and current large astronomical survey experiments often seek to constrain cosmological parameters via measurements of subtle effects such as weak lensing, which can only be measured statistically. In these cases, instrumental…
The Spherical gaseous detector (or Spherical Proportional Counter, SPC) has a broad range of applications. In this work, we will focus on the light WIMP Dark Matter particle search, that is, below a few GeV. The NEWS-G collaboration…
The Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) has been working for a decade to reduce the time and cost of designing, building and deploying new digital radio-astronomy instruments. Today, CASPER…
We present an interferometric sensor for investigating macroscopic quantum mechanics on a table-top scale. The sensor consists of pair of suspended optical cavities with a finesse in excess of 100,000 comprising 10 g fused-silica mirrors.…
Electron Multiplying CCDs (EMCCDs) are used much less often than they might be because of the challenges they offer camera designers more comfortable with the design of slow-scan detector systems. However they offer an entirely new range of…
This thesis explores experimental and theoretical approaches to dark matter detection, from gas-based detectors to quantum sensors, tackling the challenge of identifying dark matter, which makes up 27% of the Universe's energy. It reviews…
Euclid is the second medium-size mission (M2) of the ESA Cosmic Vision Program, currently scheduled for a launch in 2020. The two instruments on-board Euclid, VIS (VISible imager) and NISP (Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer), will…
The Teledyne COSMOS-66 is a next-generation CMOS camera designed for astronomical imaging, featuring a large-format sensor ($8120 \times 8120$ pixels, each $10 \mu m$), high quantum efficiency, high frame rates, and a correlated…
Cross-correlation heterodyne detectors exhibit the potential for suppression of the detection quantum noise below shot noise without use of optical squeezing for capturing weak optical signals in low frequency bands. To understand the…
We present scope (Simulated CCD Observations for Photometric Experimentation), a Python package to create a forward model of telescope detectors and simulate stellar targets with motion relative to the CCD. The primary application of this…
Further development of quantum emitter based communication and sensing applications intrinsically depends on the availability of robust single-photon detectors. Here, we demonstrate a new generation of superconducting single-photon…
SPIDER is a balloon-borne instrument designed to map the cosmic microwave background at degree-angular scales in the presence of Galactic foregrounds. SPIDER has mapped a large sky area in the Southern Hemisphere using more than 2000…
Small aerial robots are particularly well-suited for search and rescue in confined and hazardous environments due to their agility, low cost, and ability to traverse through cluttered spaces that are inaccessible to larger platforms.…
Neutrino cross sections are a critical ingredient in experiments that depend on neutrino scattering to reconstruct event kinematics and infer neutrino characteristics, like NOvA and T2K. An opportunity exists to reduce the 5-10% broad…