LINC-NIRVANA: MCAO toward Extremely Large Telescopes

LINC-NIRVANA is a Fizeau (imaging) interferometer exploiting the full spatial resolution of a 23 m class telescope in the combined beam of the Large Binocular Telescope supported through Multi-Conjugated Adaptive Optics (MCAO). By means of science cases, we show how LINC-NIRVANA takes advantage of the MCAO, increasing the sky coverage of the instrument and the field of view for the Fringe and Flexure tracker. We introduce the MCAO system of LINC-NIRVANA in detail, which in a first step will be installed with two deformable mirrors per arm and has the provision to be upgraded with a third mirror. The MCAO system implements several novel concepts proposed for extremely large telescopes, such as layer oriented MCAO, optical co-adding of guide stars, or Multiple Field of View sensing. LINC-NIRVANA will demonstrate some of the concepts for the first time on sky. To cite this article: W. Gaessler et. al., C. R. Physique 6 (2005).     

Influence of self-fields on the Vlasov equilibrium and stability properties of relativistic electron beam-plasma systems

The influence of self-fields on the equilibrium and stability properties of relativistic beam-plasma systems is studied within the framework of the Vlasov-Maxwell equations. The analysis is carried out in linear geometry, where the relativistic electron beam propagates through a background plasma (assumed nonrelativistic) along a uniform guide field $\text{B}{}_0\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{z}}$, It is assumed that $\text{ν}\text{γ}{}_0\text{? 1}$ for the beam electrons (ν is Budker's parameter, and γ₀mc² is the electron energy), but no a priori assumption is made that the beam density is small (or large) in comparison with the plasma density, or that conditions of charge neutrality or current neutrality prevail in equilibrium. It is shown that the equilibrium self-electric and self-magnetic fields, $\text{E}{}_{\mathrm{r}}{}^{\mathrm{s}}\text{(r)}\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{r}}$ and $\text{B}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}{}^{\mathrm{s}}\text{(r)}\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}$, can have a large effect on equilibrium and stability behavior. Equilibrium properties are calculated for beam (j = b) and plasma (j = e, i) distribution functions of the form f_b⁰(H, P_θ, P_z) = F(H ? ω_rbP_θ) × δ(P_z ? P₀)(j = b), and $\text{f}{}_{\mathrm{j}}{}^0\text{(H, P}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}\text{, P}{}_{\mathrm{z}}\text{) = f}{}_{\mathrm{j}}{}^0\text{(H ? ω}{}_{\mathrm{rj}}\text{P}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}\text{? V}{}_{\mathrm{j}}\text{P}{}_{\mathrm{z}}\text{?}\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{V}{}_{\mathrm{j}}{}^2\text{2}\text{)}$ (j = e, i), where H is the energy, P_θ is the canonical angular momentum, P_z is the axial canonical momentum, and ω_rj (the angular velocity of mean rotation for j = b, e, i), V_j (the mean axial velocity for j = e, i), and P₀ are constants. The linearized Vlasov-Maxwell equations are then used to investigate stability properties in circumstances where the equilibrium densities of the various components (j = b, e, i) are approximately constant. The corresponding electrostatic dispersion relation and ordinary-mode electromagnetic dispersion relation are derived (including self-field effects) for body-wave perturbations localized to the beam interior (r <R_b). These dispersion relations are analyzed in the limit of a cold beam and cold plasma background, to illustrate the basic effect that lack of charge neutrality and/or current neutrality can have on the two-stream and filamentation instabilities. It is shown that relative rotation (induced by self-fields) between the various components (j = b, e, i) can (a) result in modified two-stream instability for propagation nearly perpendicular to $\text{B}{}_0\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{z}}$, and (b) significantly extend the band of unstable k_z-values for axial two-stream instability. Moreover, in circumstances where the beam-plasma system is charge-neutralized but not current-neutralized, it is shown that the azimuthal self-magnetic field $\text{B}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}{}^{\mathrm{s}}\text{(r)}\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}$ has a stabilizing influence on the filamentation instability for ordinary-mode propagation perpendicular to $\text{B}{}_0\text{e}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{z}}$.     

Diffusion and equilibrium swelling of macromolecular networks by their linear homologs

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) networks having strands of molecular weight in the range 11,000–36,000 have been prepared by endlinking linear PDMS molecules of these molecular weights with a tetrafunctional linking agent. Absorption of a series of homologous linear PDMS molecules by the resulting PDMS networks has been investigated. The diffusion coefficients at 70°C were found to be rather large, 1 × 10^?12–6 × 10^?12 m²/s, and approximately inversely proportional to the molecular weight of the diffusing liquid, over the range 5000–38,000. The amount of liquid absorbed at equilibrium was relatively small, 10–80%, in good agreement in all cases with an especially simple version of the Flory–Huggins theory when the heat of mixing is made vanishingly small and only entropic terms are retained.     

NMR Spectroscopic Assignment of Backbone and Side‐Chain Protons in Fully Protonated Proteins: Microcrystals,Sedimented Assemblies,and Amyloid Fibrils

We demonstrate sensitive detection of alpha protons of fully protonated proteins by solid‐state NMR spectroscopy with 100–111 kHz magic‐angle spinning (MAS). The excellent resolution in the Cα‐Hα plane is demonstrated for 5 proteins, including microcrystals, a sedimented complex, a capsid and amyloid fibrils. A set of 3D spectra based on a Cα–Hα detection block was developed and applied for the sequence‐specific backbone and aliphatic side‐chain resonance assignment using only 500 μg of sample. These developments accelerate structural studies of biomolecular assemblies available in submilligram quantities without the need of protein deuteration.