The Defense will take place of UPMC – 4 Place Jussieu – 75005 Paris.

This research work fulfilled as part of my PhD project involved to design, build and characterise a new experimental setup based on an atom source by evaporative cooling in an optical dipole trap. It goes after the improvement of the uncertainty on the measurement of  the ratio h/m between Planck’s constant and the rubidium atom mass, reducing the Gouy phase and wavefront curvature.
In a first step we have studied several optical configurations to optimise the dipole trap loading: the 50 W beam at 1070 nm is shaped in a double 93 μm waist reservoir and one crossed 20 μm waist dimple. After having optimised and caracterised the evaporative process, we obtained one Bose-Einstein condensate.
Furthermore, for Raman interferometry, we set up a new laser system at 1560 nm based on frequency doubling. We developed a double cervo loop: on the one hand, it allows to phase lock the two laser sources, and on the other hand to correct phase noise accumulated in fibered amplifiers.
Today, our new experimental setup is ready to perform atom interferometry on a Bose-Einstein condensate.

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The defense will take place “salle des séminaires” of  Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (IAP) – 98 bis Bld Arago – 75014 Paris

In front of a jury composed of
Philippe Bouyer – Matthias Keller – Agnès Maitre – François-Xavier Esnault – Tilo Steinmetz et Jean-Marc Lasage

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6 June 2016 (Besançon) – Thesis defense of Alexandre DIDIER : “Development of ultra-stable Fabry-Perot cavities for new generation optical frequency standards”

10 June 2016 (Paris) – Thesis defense of Stéphane TREMINE : “Study of Cesium atoms cooling in a 3D speckle laser field and realization of a compact atomic clock”.

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After three postponements for meterological reasons, the Soyouz VS14 rocket has been successfully launched from Kourou on 25th April 2016, with several satellites onboard, among them Microscope which has the objective to test the Einstein’s Equivalence Principle with the highest ever precision.

In France, in this mission funded by the French space agency CNES, ONERA is responsible of the development of the accelerometric instrument and of the Scientific Mission Center. The laboratory GEOAZUR (Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS) contributes to the mission plan and prepares the scientific processing in collaboration with ONERA. Other European institutions have also contributed to this mission : ESA, DLR, PTB, ZARM.

=> More information on Microscope

A summer school and an international conference covering the wide area of matter-wave physics and its applications.

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Cold atoms are at the heart of the new quantum technologies (atomic clocks, quantum simulators, quantum sensors, first prototypes of quantum computers, etc.), which, in the near future, shall have a deep impact both on fundamental as well as on applied research.

This workshop, whose topic is theory and experiments with ultra-cold alkaline-earth atoms (Sr, Yb, Hg, Mg, Ra…), will take place on 22-24 Feb. 2016 at Paris Observatory.
Please feel free to come and attend the workshop in the amphitheatre of IAP.

The detailed program can be found at https://indico.obspm.fr/event/1/timetable/#all.detailed
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Following the annoucement of the direct detection of gravitational waves, a one day meeting is organized on 17th Feb. 2016. The seminars will address the detectors, the observed signals, the consequences on astrophysics and fundamental physics.
This meeting will take place on Wednesday 17th Feb. 2016, starting at 09:30, in the amphitheatre Turing, Sophie Germain Building, Paris-Diderot University.
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The next FIRST-TF general assembly will take place on 24th March 2016 in University Paris 13 (Villetaneuse).

It is open to all FIRST-TF members. Agenda:  presentation of highlights and projects funded by FIRST-TF, discussions.

=> More informations on the program & registration

Edouard RICHARD will defend his thesis  on the subject :

“Study and realization of a new spatio-temporal reference system based on inter-satellite links in a GNSS constellation”

The defense will take place on westeday  Wednesday, 27 of January 2016 at 14:30 in l’amphithéâtre de l’IAP (Observatoire de Paris).(Paris)

This thesis performed under the supervision of Peter WOLF and Pacôme DELVA