USN
(Nançay Radioastronomy Station)The USN (Unité Scientifique de Nançay - the Nançay Scientific Unit) is a department of the Observatoire de Paris, and is also a Unité de Service et de Recherche (Service and Research Unit) of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (USR 704), associated with Orleans University (OSUC).
Administrative structure
- Director : Stéphane Corbel
- Deputy Directors : Laurent Denis, Philippe Zarka
Subjects
Radioastronomy
Solar Physics / heliosphere, planetary magnetospheres, comets, pulsars (emission mechanisms, tests of gravitational theories, the interstellar medium, gravitational waves), envelopes of evolved stars, large 21cm extragalactic surveys, large structures, monitoring of extragalactic continuum radio sources (blazars, gamma ray bursts (GRBs)), supernovae)
Instrumentation, Research and Development
Microelectronics, radio frequency and digital electronics, signal processing, real time and space based information technology.
Personnel
41 permanent ITAs , 1 researcher, 2 post-docs, 2 Ph.D. students, 3 CDD engineers.
Main Collaborations
- ASTRON (NL), Manchester (UK)
- RADIONET/FP7
- Consortium SKA
- Consortia EPTA, IPTA
- Consortium FERMI
- Observatoire de Bordeaux (LAB)
- IN2P3/SUBATECH
- IN2P3/LAL
Salient results
- 2015: In June, the first 15 mini-arrays of the NenuFAR radiotelescope will be installed. 7 extra mini-arrays will be built in December.
- 2013 - 2014: 5 hectacres of ground will be cleared for the installation of the first NenuFAR antennas. A GPS enables the antennas to be positioned on the site to the desired accuracy (+/- 5cm).
- 2008-2016: EMBRACE, an experimental radiotelescope, has been shown to be robust and very reliable. In spite of its modest collecting surface, it can carry out vaious astronomical tasks, and in particular in spectroscopy and pulsar observations. EMBRACE is destined to join the Mid Frequency Aperture Array consortium for the SKA international project.
- 2011: 20th of May, inauguration of the LOFAR station FR606 at Nançay.
- 2010-2012: First light for the French LOFAR station FR606. The study of the LSS concept (Lofar Super Station) has been completed. It involves an extended LOFAR station (20 times more sensitive), made up of a second LOFAR low frequency core, which can also function as a stand-alone instruement.
- 2009-2016 : 4 new millisecond pulsars detected in gamma rays, thanks to timing observations made at Nançay and to observations using the gamma ray telescope on the gamma ray telescope on NASA’s Fermi satellite.
- 2016 : The Nançay Decametric Array, ground based support for the JUNO mission. It is now equiped with a receiver which was specially designed for support observations of JUNO, enabling the temporal and spectral resolutions to be extended to 3 ms and 3 kHz respectively.
- 2010-2012 : First light for the French LOFAR station FR606. The study of the LSS concept for an extended station with a 20 fold improvement in sensitivity, consisting of a second low frequency core for LOFAR and a stand-alone instrument, has been completed and a prototype constructed.
- September 2012 : Birth and first light of ORFEES, a new solar spectrograph for the 130-1000MHz domain; it is part of a unique series of low frequency solar instruments at Nançay.
- 2011-2012 : Scientific validation of EMBRACE, the SKA_mid demonstrator: validation of the tracking and control system of the receiver, followed by the tracking of various astrophysical sources. In particular, observation and tracking for 6 hours of the pulsar B0329+54.
- 2008-2012 : Pulsar scientific results of the NRT: 48 class A publications during this period, 48% of the european data injected into the IPTA (Intercontinental Pulsar Timing Array).
- 2008-2012 : The microelectronics group is now competent in the entire RF receiver chain for SKA_mid, from the low noise amplifiers (LNA) up to the analogue-digital convertors (ADC), and is producing many integrated circuits.
