関本 裕太郎

Heterodyne mixing performance of a waveguide SIS mixer with inhomogeneous distributed Junction (DJ) array composed of 3 SIS Junctions is experimentally investigated at 375-500GHz. Quantum-limited noise temperature of 3-D J mixer is demonstrated. Besides Its low noise temperature, the mixer conversion gain of 3-DJ mixer is found to be more uniform over RF band than that of a PCTJ (parallel-connected twin Junctions) mixer. The FTS (Fourier transform spectrum) response indicates a broad RF bandwidth of the 3-DJ mixer that Is limited by the bandwidth of waveguide probe instead of mixer's tuning circuit.

Heterodyne mixing performance of a waveguide SIS mixer with inhomogeneous distributed junction (DJ) array composed of 3 SIS junctions is experimentally investigated at 375-500GHz. Quantum-limited noise temperature of 3-DJ mixer is demonstrated. Besides its low noise temperature, the mixer conversion gain of 3-DJ mixer is found to be more uniform over RF band than that of a PCTJ (parallel-connected twin junctions) mixer. The FTS (Fourier transform spectrum) response indicates a broad RF bandwidth of the 3-DJ mixer that is limited by the bandwidth of waveguide probe instead of mixer's tuning circuit.

We developed a 385-500GHz balanced mixer with a waveguide quadrature hybrid coupler. The balanced mixer consists of an RF quadrature hybrid coupler, two double sideband (DSB) SIS mixers with noise temperature of ~ 60K, and an IF 180 degree hybrid coupler covering 4 - 8 GHz IF band. An RF quadrature hybrid coupler was designed and fabricated whose fabrication error was within 5μm. The noise temperatures of the balanced mixer was similar to those of two DSB mixers in spite of adding an RF quadrature hybrid and an IF coupler. The required LO power for pumping the balanced mixer was reduced by ~12dB on average compared with those for the DSB mixers and -15dB coupler. The sideband noise of the local oscillator (a quintupler + a Gunn oscillator) was measured to be 20K at offset frequency of 4 - 8 GHz, which corresponds to 70K/μW. To authors' knowledge, this is the first direct measurement of LO sideband noise at submillimeter range. If a varistor quintupler degrades the signal-to-noise by 10dB (K. Saini 2003 [1]), the sideband noise of a Gunn oscillator is 7K/μW at the offset frequency of 0.8-1.6 GHz.

Abstract-We have developed a 385-500 GHz sidebandseparating (2SB) mixer, which is based on a waveguide split-block coupler at the edge of the E-plane of the waveguide, for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). An RF/LO coupler, which contains an RF quadrature hybrid, two LO couplers, and an in-phase power divider, was designed with the issue of mechanical tolerance taken into account. The single-sideband (SSB) noise temperature of a receiver using the RF/LO coupler is 104 K at the band center, which corresponds to 5 times the quantum noise limit (hf/k) in SSB, and 280 K at the band edges. The image rejection ratio of the receiver was found to be larger than 9.5 dB and typically 15 dB in the 385-500 GHz band.

In this paper, we report on the design and experimental results of a fix-tuned Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer for Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 8 (385-500 GHz) receivers. Nb-based SIS junctions of a current density of 10 kA/cm2 and one micrometer size (fabricated with a two-step lift-off process) are employed to accomplish the ALMA feceiver specification, which requires wide frequency coverage as well as low noise temperature. Parallel-connected twin junctions (PCTJ) are designed to resonate at the band center to tune out the junction geometric capacitance. A waveguide-microstrip probe is optimized to have nearly frequency-independent impedance at the probe's feed point, thereby making it much easier to match the low-impedance PCTJ over a wide frequency band. In addition, a superconducting magnet fixed onto the compact mixer block to provide efficient magnetic field coupling is designed. The SIS mixer demonstrates a minimum double-sideband receiver noise temperature of 108 K at the band center and temperatures of less than 167 K over the whole band (for an intermediate-frequency range of 4-8 GHz). © 2005 IEEE.

Millimeter- and submillimeter-wave heterodyne mixers based on the Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) junctions have used a local oscillator (LO) source which is a combination of a Gunn diode and multipliers. Since such an LO source has a mechanical complexity and poor frequency coverage especially at the submillimeter wavelength, a compact and mechanically-simple LO source with broad frequency coverage is highly required for submillimeter-wave SIS receivers in the radio telescopes. Photomixers, which generate a difference frequency of two lasers at the millimeter and submillimeter wavelength by photoconductive mixing, have been alternatively developed. Photomixers are so compact sources with broad frequency tunability that they can meet the requirement for the LO source of the SIS receivers at the millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths in the radio telescopes. We have been developing a new type of millimeter-wave oscillator, which is called a photomixer, based on non-linear optical frequency conversion, or photomixing, in a Uni-Traveling-Carrier Photodiode (UTC-PD).[1-5] We have successfully demonstrated that the photomixer can produce a millimeter wave at 100 GHz with output power as high as 2 mW, when the photodiode is optically-pumped by two 1.55-μm lasers with input power of ∼100 mW each. Schematic diagram of our photomixer is shown in Fig. 1 and a schematic drawing and a photograph of the photomixer mount as well as a photograph of a diode chip are shown in Fig. 2. We have used the photomixer as an LO source for SIS mixers at 100-GHz band. The photomixer output and an RF signal are combined by a cross-guide coupler with a coupling efficiency of ∼-25 dB placed on the 4-K stage in a dewar and then coupled into the SIS mixer. This LO coupling scheme is popularly used in low-noise receivers at millimeter wavelengths. It is demonstrated that the photomixer can provide sufficient LO power required for optimum operation of the SIS mixer in the frequency band from 85 to 110 GHz. Since it is important to know the magnitude of (amplitude) noise generated by the photomixer, it is intended to measure the noise of the photomixer in comparison to that of a Gunn-diode oscillator. We have made measurement of noise performance of SIS mixers using a Gunn-diode LO source as well as photomixer LO source. Then, we carefully compared receiver noise temperatures of the SIS mixer pumped by the photomixer with those pumped by the Gunn-diode oscillator. Measured receiver noise temperature in those two cases are plotted in Fig. 3. It is clearly shown that receiver noise temperature of the SIS mixer pumped by the photomixer is as low as that pumped by the Gunn oscillator and no significant difference of receiver noise temperatures between the two cases was found. This experimental result indicate that the noise in the photomixer is sufficiently low for supplying LO to low-noise SIS mixers. Similar comparison of noise temperatures for Gunn diodes and photomixers have been made in the SIS mixers at 150-GHz band and 490-GHz band and no significant increase of noise temperature of SIS mixers have been found in both cases. Test observation of a spectral line of CS (J=2-1) at 98 GHz with an SIS receiver using the photonic LO has been made using a SIS receiver in the 45-m telescope at Nobeyama Radio Observatory.[6] The observed spectrum was carefully compared with that obtained by a receiver with conventional Gunn-diode LO. It is clear that nearly identical spectra have been obtained for both cases as shown in Fig. 4. © 2005 IEEE.

We have developed a cartridge-type 800 GHz receiver for the ASTE telescope in Atacama. Chile. The receiver has been assembled with a cooled receiver optics. a Nb-based SIS mixer, a local oscillator (LO) optics, and IF components in a 170 mm diameter column-type cartridge. The cooled optics is composed of a single ellipsoidal Mirror to Couple between the feed horn and the subreflector of the antenna, and an LO coupler with 10% efficiency. Owing to its cartridge and cryostat structure, the mechanical vibrations of the GM cryocooler are significantly reduced, and therefore the receiver is highly stable on the telescope. The receiver noise temperature, using a Nb-based SIS mixer and a 4-8 GHz HEMT amplifier, was attained to 1300 K in DSB at an LO frequency of 815 GHz. The system noise temperature. T-sys, was typically 4000-8000 K in DSB at an LO frequency of 812 GHz during operations, which depended oil the atmospheric opacity. The typical zenith opacity at an LO frequency of 8 121 GHz was similar to 1. The half-power beam width (HPBW) of the Main beam was measured by total power scanning across the Moon, and was consistent with the diffraction limit. A spectrum of the CO J = 7-6 line (806.6518 GHz) toward Orion KL was successfully detected.

ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array)計画は、日本・北米・欧州が国際協力により、南米チリのアタカマ砂漠に建設する大型ミリ波サブミリ波干渉計である。建設予定地は標高5000mの高地で、比較的平坦な上地で、直径14kmに分布する干渉計の建設が可能である。超高精度(鏡面精度20μm r.m.s.以下)サブミリ波アンテナ12m鏡および7m鏡を合計80台設置し、ハッブル宇宙望遠鏡やすばる望遠鏡の角度分解能〜0.1秒角を上回る0.01秒角を達成する。観測周波数30GHz-950GHzを大気の窓に対応した10個の周波数バンドに分割し、それぞれをカートリッジ型受信機でカバーする。ALMAの装置は、日本・北米・欧州がそれぞれの最先端技術や英知を結集して開発している。本講演では、日本が担当する超伝導サブミリ波受信機の開発や光電気変換デバイスを用いた干渉計用参照信号源(Photonic Local Oscillator)などの装置開発についても紹介する。その結果、既存のミリ波干渉計に比べて2桁高い性能をもつ。ALMAは2007年より数素子にて部分運用をおこない、2012年より本格的な観測が始まる。

N2H+ observations of molecular cloud cores in Taurus with the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope are reported. We compare cores with young stars to cores without young stars. The differences in core radius, line width, and core mass are small. Line width is dominated by thermal motions in both cases. N2H+ maps show that the intensity distribution does not differ much between cores without stars and those with stars. This is in contrast to the result previously obtained in H13CO+ toward Taurus molecular cloud cores. A larger degree of depletion of H 13CO+ in starless cores is one possible explanation for this difference. We studied the physical state of molecular cloud cores in terms of "critical pressure" for the surface (external) pressure. There is no systematic difference between starless cores and cores with stars in this analysis. Both are not far from the critical equilibrium state. We suggest that molecular cloud cores in which thermal support dominates evolve toward star formation by keeping close to the critical equilibrium state. This result is in contrast to that obtained in the intermediate-mass star-forming region OMC-2/3, where molecular cloud cores evolve by decreasing the critical pressure (dissipating turbulence). We investigate the radial distribution of the integrated intensity. Cores with stars are found to have shallow (-1.8 to -1.6) power-law density profiles.

サブミリ波アンテナとして広帯域,高利得かつ低損失コルゲートアンテナの設計を行ったので報告する.従来からコルゲートホーンアンテナは放射パターンの対称性が良く,交差偏波が非常に小さいことが知られているため,電波望遠鏡等の低損失アンテナとして用いられてきた.しかし,円形ホーンアンテナの内側に単純にコルゲーションと呼ばれる溝を施すだけでの設計では,広帯域において高効率かつ低交差偏波特性を有するアンテナ設計は容易ではない.特に電波天文学において観測に用いるサブミリ波電波望遠鏡の受信機ホーンに必要な性能を有する設計は非常に困難であった.我々は,コルゲートホーンアンテナの給電部とフレア部の間に独特のモード変換部を設ける事により,非常に高性能なサブミリ波ホーンアンテナを設計することができたので報告する.

This paper introduce the two types of submillimeter-wave horn antennae designed by the authors and present the experimental results obtained by an evaluative testing system that has also been developed by the authors. Submillimeter-wave components are widely used in radio-astronomical observation apparatuses. It should be noted, however, that, because the submillimeter-waves radiating from astronomical objects are extremely weak, there is a need to minimize (1) the various losses possibly occurred in the wave-receiving unit of observation apparatus, and (2) the quantity of the unwanted electromagnetic waves mixing in. With a view to achieving this objective, therefore, the authors provide in this paper their theoretical and experimental analyses of the submillimeter-wave horn antennae as well. It is a well-known fact that a corrugated horn antenna possesses very low levels of cross-polarized field intensity and high levels of radiation gain. It is for this reason that the authors have chosen to use corrugated horn antennae or, to be more specific, two types of such antennae - one designed by the authors for use in the range of 280GHz to 360GHz frequencies and tested actually to ascertain its characteristics, and the other designed for use in the range of 385GHz to 500GHz frequencies and tested actually to ascertain its characteristics. Note that (1) the measurements of the antenna beam patterns have been found to largely correspond to those of the numerical analyses, (2) it may, therefore, be safely assumed that the corrugated horn antennae presented here are functionally as efficient as they were designed, and (3) it may well be concluded that the measuring system developed by authors for evaluating submillimeter-wave horn antennae doubtless serves its useful purposes.

The ALMA telescope will be an interferometer of 64 antennas, which will be situated in the Atacama desert in Chile. Each antenna will have receivers that cover the frequencies 30 GHz to 970 GHZ. This frequency range is divided into 10 frequency bands. All of these receiver bands are fitted on a cartridge and cooled, with bands 1 and 2 at 15K and the other 8 are SIS receivers at a temperature of 4K. Each band has a dual polarization receiver. The optics has been designed so that the maximum of the optics is cooled to minimize the noise temperature increase to the receivers. The design of the optics will be shown for each frequency bands. Test results with the method of testing on a near field amplitude and phase measurement system will be given for the first 4 frequency bands to be used, which are bands 3 (84-116 GHz), 6 (211-275GHz), 7 (275-375 GHz and 9 (600-702 GHz). These measurements will be compared with physical optics calculations.

We have developed a simple and small thermal link for cooling a cylindrical cartridge, on which device under test is mounted. It consists of a crown-like ring with an inner diameter of 170 or 140 mm and a clamping belt, which is a metal spring or nylon. A thermal conduction of the thermal link is achieved as the crown-like ring clamps the disk-like stage of the cartridge with external force of the clamping belt. This link can be applied at various temperature ranges from 2 to 100 K. The measured thermal conductance of the 170 mm link is 1.7, 5.6 and 3.3 WK-1 for 4, 12, and 80 K stages, respectively. These values are consistent with a empirical calculation within 10% errors. This link is also effective to reduce mechanical vibration to be 6 μm (peak-to-peak) in the horizontal direction of the cartridge. This link is easily fabricated and is useful to various detectors which require to be cooled down. © 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Noise at millimeter wavelengths from a photonic local oscillator (LO) is compared with that from a Gunn oscillator using a low-noise superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) receiver. No significant additional noise is added to the receiver by the photonic LO in the frequency range of 96-110 GHz. [DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.42.L704].

The 3 P 1 - 3 P 0 fine-structure line of the neutral carbon atom ([C I]) has been mapped over the 1°.8 × 1°.3 area of the L1688 cloud in the ρ Ophiuchi region with the Mount Fuji submillimeter-wave telescope. The 3 P 2 - 3 P 1 line of [C I] has also been observed toward two representative positions to evaluate the excitation temperature of the [C I] lines. The overall extent of the [C I] distribution generally resembles that of the 13 CO distribution. The [C I] distribution has two major peaks; one (peak I) is at ρ Oph A, and the other (peak II) is toward the east side of the C 18 O core in the southern part of L1688. Peak II is located beyond the C 18 O core with respect to the exciting star HD 147889. The C 0 column density is 5.0 × 10 17 cm -2 toward peak II. The spatial distribution of the [C I] emission is compared with plane-parallel photodissociation region (PDR) models, which suggest that peak II is associated with a lower density PDR front, adjacent to the dense cloud cores observed in the C 18 O line emission. Alternatively, peak II is in the early stage of chemical evolution, where C 0 has not been completely converted to CO. In this case, the difference in the [C I] and C 18 O distributions represents an evolutionary sequence. This is consistent with a picture of a shock-compressed formation of the dense cores in this region due to influences from the Sco OB2 association.

We have developed a W-band (75-110 GHz) waveguide photomixer with a uni-traveling carrier photodiode, which can be driven by two 1.5-μm lasers. It generates an output power of 2.2 ± 0.2 mW at 100 GHz with a laser power of less than 100 mW, and its relative power variation is as small as 3 dB across the entire frequency range of the W-band. A 100-GHz superconductor-insulator-superconductor receiver driven by this photomixer shows the same noise temperature around 26 K as that driven by a conventional Gunn oscillator.

We developed a cryogenic system, which houses 3 cartridge-type superconductor-insulator-superconductor receivers for millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. Since it was designed as a prototype receiver of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), high stability, accurate alignment, and easy handling were required. To meet these requirements, the cryogenic system included the following technologies: 1) a thermal link without screws for receiver cartridges; 2) a central support structure to reduce vacuum and gravitational deformation; 3) bellows structures to reduce mechanical vibration of the cryocooler; and 4) a 3-stage Gifford McMahon (GM) cryocooler with an He pot (temperature stabilizer) to reduce the thermal ripple. The cryostat and receiver cartridges are composed of three stages. The temperatures on the 4 K, 12 K, and 100 K stages of the cartridge are 3.5 K, 13.4 K, and 78.3 K, respectively. The thermal conductances of the thermal links showed high performances of 1.7 WK-1 at the 4 K stage, 5.6 WK-1 at the 12 K stage, and 3.3 WK-1 at the 100 K stage. The mechanical vibration on the 4 K stage of the cartridge was reduced to one-tenth, as small as ≈ 2 μm peak-to-peak, compared to that on the 4 K coldhead of the cryocooler, ≈ 20 μm peak-to-peak. The temperature ripple on the cartridge was reduced to as small as 2 mK peak-to-peak, which corresponds to one-seventh of the ripple on the 4 K coldhead with an He pot.

This paper aims to introduce two types of submillimeter-wave horn antennae designed by the authors and to present numerical findings obtained by an evaluative testing system that has also been developed by the authors. Submillimeter-wave components are widely used in radio-astronomical observation systems. There is a need to minimize (1) the various losses possibly incurred in the wave-receiving unit, and (2) the quantity of the unwanted electromagnetic waves mixing in. It is a well-known fact that a corrugated horn antenna possesses very low levels of cross-polarized field intensity, loss, and side lobes. It is for this reason that the authors have chosen to use corrugated horn antennae as two types of such antennae - one designed for use in the range of 280 GHz to 360 GHz frequencies and tested at 280 GHz, 332 GHz, and 360 GHz, and the other designed for use in the range of 385 GHz to 500 GHz frequencies and tested at 385 GHz, 442.5 GHz, and 500 GHz. The measurements of the antenna beam patterns have been found to largely correspond to those of the numerical analyses; it may be concluded that the antennae are functionally as efficient as they were designed and the testing system doubtless serves the desired purpose.

We present the results of experimental radioastronomical observations of an interstellar molecular spectral line with an SIS (superconductor-insulator-superconductor) receiver pumped by a photonic local oscillator (LO). A millimeter-wave LO signal was generated by feeding an optical comb signal into a W-band (75-110 GHz) photomixer using a uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC-PD). A CS J = 2-1 line at 98 GHz was observed toward a high-mass star-forming region W 51 (H2O). We compared the obtained spectra with those obtained with a conventional Gunn oscillator as an LO. As a result, the line parameters, such as the width, intensity, and frequency, were consistent with each other. The results presented here show that the photonic LO is a very promising source for heterodyne receivers in millimeter- and submillimeter-wave astronomy.

A photonic millimetre-wave and sub-millimetre-wave emitter (PME) that uses a log-periodic antenna and a uni-travelling carrier photodiode has been fabricated and tested. The output power and spectra of the PME were measured with a Fourier transform spectrometer and a bolometer at 100-800 GHz in a low-power excitation condition. The extrapolated output power with 15 mA photocurrent is several tens of microWatts in the 300-600 GHz range.

The large-scale distribution of the C I (3P1- 3P0, 492 GHz) emission line from Orion A and B giant molecular clouds has been imaged with the Mount Fuji submillimeter-wave telescope. The total area observed is about 15 deg2. The overall spatial and velocity structure of the C I line is found to be similar to that of the 13CO (J = 1-0) line. The derived column density ratio N(C I)/N(CO) shows a large variation ranging from 0.2 to 2.9 toward the cloud edges, whereas it is relatively constant between 0.1 and 0.2 toward the interior region of the entire Orion clouds in both massive star-forming and dark cloud regions. This almost constant ratio suggests that C I can coexist with CO even in the deep inside of the molecular cloud.

We present observations of the 3P1-3P0 fine-structure transition of atomic carbon [C I], the J = 3-2 transition of CO, and the J = 1-0 transitions of 13CO and C18O toward DR 15, an H 11 region associated with two mid-infrared dark clouds (IRDCs). The 13CO and C18O J = 1-0 emissions closely follow the dark patches seen in optical wavelength, showing two self-gravitating molecular cores with masses of 2000 and 900 M⊙, respectively, at the positions of the cataloged IRDCs. Our data show a rough spatial correlation between [C I] and 13CO J = 1-0. Bright [C I] emission occurs in the relatively cold gas behind the molecular cores but does not occur in either highly excited gas traced by CO J = 3-2 emission or in the H II region/molecular cloud interface. These results are inconsistent with those predicted by standard photodissociation region models, suggesting an origin for interstellar atomic carbon unrelated to photodissociation processes.

We present ASCA observations of the gravitationally lensed blazar PKS 1830-211. Intensity variations of about 10% and spectral variations were detected in the eight observations made at intervals of about 5 days. The spectral variations can be described by a change of absorption column density if we represent the spectrum with a single power-law model. However, it is more likely that the spectrum consists of two spectral components with different absorptions and that their intensity ratio varies. The column densities of the two components are consistent with the column densities of the two lensed images. However, the intensity ratio is different by a factor of 7.4 from the magnification ratio of the two lensed images. We suggest that the discrepancy is most likely due to X-ray microlensing, among several other possibilities. We estimate that the size of the X-ray emission region must be smaller than ∼3 × 1014 cm in order to explain the observed microlensing magnification.

We report the detection of the gravitationally lensed BALQSO H1413+117 at z=2.56, with the 40 ks Chandra ACIS-S observation. The X-ray image contains quadruply lensed images, however the flux ratios of the four images differ from the optical values by a factor of similar to5. We obtained the luminosity of 3.9x10(44) ergs/s for the QSO, and an upperlimit of 3.7x10(43) ergs/s for the possible lens object. The X-ray energy spectrum requires a strong BAL absorption feature with a hydrogen column density of 2.4(-1.2)(+1.5) x 10(23) cm(-2) at z=2.55(-0.18)(+0.27), consistent with the QSO redshift. In addition, a strong emission line at 6.21 +/- 0.16 keV with the equivalent width of 960(-480)(+1400) eV at the QSO rest frame, suggests that most of the direct component from the central engine is blocked by the BAL flow thus making the scattered component dominant.