Low Temperature Nuclear Orientation (LTNO) experiments allow to probe magnetic properties of polarized exotic nuclei. With this technique, we observe nuclei under extreme conditions, that is to say very low temperatures (~10mK) and very high magnetic field (10-100T). Under such conditions, the radioactive emission is anistropic, and its shape tells us more about the nucleus...
The Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers are considered, for their optical and spin proprieties, promising candidates for quantum sensing applications. In this work, the spin-dependent optical proprieties of a NV centers ensemble are exploited in order to realize a spectrum analyzer.
To do that, a static magnetic field gradient, generated by a permanent magnet, induces a spatial dependent Zeeman...
QUBIC is an experiment dedicated to the measurement of polarization B-modes of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) using the novel technology of Bolometric Interferometry. In this talk, I will start with a brief explanation of the underlying physics: What are primordial B-modes and why it will give us invaluable insights on what happened during the inflation era, right after the Big Bang....
In nature, some motile microorganisms have evolved in such a way to respond to environmental light stimuli, essentially allowing them to find better living conditions.
In the lab, it is possible to engineer bacterial cells so as to make them photokinetic, that is, to control their speed by means of the light shone on them: these cells move faster when exposed to high-intensity light, whereas...
The conflicts between cosmological observations (dark matter, matter/anti-matter asymmetry ...) and the predictions of the Standard Model (SM) calls for New Physics (NP) beyond the SM, i.e. new interactions or new particles. Collider experiments such as the LHC at CERN is a privileged place for NP searches. Indeed, by smashing together two protons at nearly the speed of light, one can try to...
The state of a quantum system is completely determined by its wave-function or density-matrix, which evolve according to an equation of motion. When the system is composed of many interacting particles, the many-body problem increases exponentially the size of those objects, which eventually cannot be stored in the memory of a computer. For decades researchers approached the issue by...
Muon tomography consists in using cosmic muons to probe structures in a non-invasive nor destructive way. The successful development of muon telescopes using Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors over the past decades triggered the interest of many industrials for such technology. However, telescopes are limited in terms of compacity and angular acceptance which are performances with high...
The Majorana fermion, initially theoricized in high-energy physics, has the particularity of being its own antiparticle. In 2001, Kitaev [1] proposed that Majoranas could be realized as low energy excitation in something called a topological superconductor triggering a huge number of theoretical and experimental studies, especially due to interesting possibilities in quantum computing....
Fluid-structure interactions are the basics of the complexity of Aerodynamics, enhancing resonance in structures and turbulence in flows. Even simple systems like a pendulum can become more complex, as a hysteretic bistability shows up for a range of flow velocities when the pendulum confronts a flow. This is predicted by a simple balance of weight and aerodynamical forces, but non stationary...
Black holes are intriguing and singular objects; Einstein did not even believe in their existence. However, the first observation of a rotating black hole in our universe has been recently reported and is an undeniable confirmation of their presence.
In 1974, Hawking predicted that black holes are not completely black, but emit a thermal radiation at a certain temperature $T_{\rm H}$, the...
Gravitational waves (GW) are ripples in the fabric of spacetime, emitted by compact accelerating objects. On September 2015, the first direct detection of GW from a binary black hole merger initiates the field of GW astronomy and opened a new window on the Universe. On August 17, 2017, Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors jointly detected gravitational-waves resulting of the merger of...
Quarkonia, bound states between a heavy quark and its own antiquark, are of particular interest when it comes to probing the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), a very special state of matter believed to have been in existence during the first moments after the Big-Bang. This state of matter can be recreated in high energy heavy ion collisions and one of the ways it can be studied, is through the...
Low frequency waves turbulence developing in magnetized plasma columns are well known to trigger important radial transport, a major issue for fusion devices. We present here analysis from very fast imaging of low frequency waves in a magnetically confined plasma column.
Our experimental set-up consists in a cylindrical chamber containing an Argon plasma column of 10 cm diameter of...
