NIKA

The New IRAM KID Arrays (NIKA) is a dual-band (150 and 240 GHz) Kinetic Inductance Detectors camera for continuum observations at the IRAM 30m telescope. NIKA has been built by the Institut Néel, LPSC, IPAG and IRAM Grenoble, and the University of Cardiff. NIKA comprises two focal planes: 132 pixels at 120-170 GHz and 224 pixels at 200-280 GHz. NIKA covers simultaneously in the two bands the same portion of the Sky with an instantaneous field-of-view of 2 arc-min.

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Overview

NIKA is a dual band instrument using few hundreds of Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID). The KID resonances variations which are dependent on the incoming power are probed by a comb of tones allowing to perform frequency domain multiplexing. Being a prototype in constant evolution the arrays characteristics (number of pixels, field of view, sensitivity, etc.) have evolved over the years from each test run to the other. The main characteristics of the latest configuration are summarized on the following table.

• Number of KIDs = number of KIDs which resonance is probed with a tone generated by the electronics (in parenthesis = conservative number of KIDs for which no problem has been found in the data). Physically there's 224 KIDs on the 1mm array and 132 KIDs on the 2mm array.
• NEFD = Noise equivalent flux density outside of the atmosphere = sensitivity.
• HPBW = Half power beam width = angular resolution.
• FoV = effective Field-of-View calculated from area covered by all pixels.

• NIKA is a prototype used to test the technologies to be used in the bigger 6.5' FOV NIKA2 instrument currently in development phase (private Wiki here).

• Go to the NIKA wish list.

Call for proposals

NIKA is offered for the first time to the community the winter semester 2013/14:

• Call for observing proposals with the 30m

• Guidelines to estimate observing times.

Reports and Publications

• Reports:

  • Summary of the 1st NIKA pool (February 2014).

  • Procedure for cooling down the PT NIKA cryostat -- for IRAM staff

• Refereed papers:

  • High angular resolution Sunyaev-Zel'dovich observations of MACS J1423.8+2404 with NIKA: Multiwavelength analysis (Adam et al., A&A 586, A122 (2016))

  • Pressure distribution of the high-redshift cluster of galaxies CL J1226.9+3332 with NIKA (Adam et al., A&A 576, A12 (2015))

  • Performance and calibration of the NIKA camera at the IRAM 30 m telescope (Catalano et al. 2014, arXiv)

  • First observation of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect with Kinetic Inductance Detectors (Adam et al., A&A 569, A66 (2014))

  • Improved mm-wave photometry for kinetic inductance detectors (Calvo et al. 2013, A&A)

  • NIKEL: Electronics and data acquisition for kilopixels kinetic inductance camera (O. Bourrion et al. 2012, arXiv)

  • A Dual-band Millimeter-wave Kinetic Inductance Camera for the IRAM 30 m Telescope (Monfardini et al. 2011, ApJS)

  • NIKA: A millimeter-wave kinetic inductance camera (Monfardini et al. 2010, A&A)

• Thesis:

  • Rémi Adam, supervised by J.F. Macías-Pérez and F.X. Désert (2012-2015) (Observation des amas de galaxies par effet Sunyaev-Zel'dovich et de la polarisation du fond diffus cosmologique : de Planck à NIKA (in French))

Support teams

• Overall coordinator:

  • Samuel Leclercq (IRAM/Grenoble, <leclercq@iram.fr>)

• NIKA team:

  • Alain Benoit <alain.benoit@grenoble.cnrs.fr> (PI, IN)

  • Alessandro Monfardini <monfardini@grenoble.cnrs.fr> (co-PI, IN)

  • François-Xavier Désert <francois-xavier.desert@obs.ujf-grenoble.fr> (IPAG)

  • Martino Calvo <martino.calvo@grenoble.cnrs.fr> (IN)

  • Antonio D'Addabbo <antonio.d-addabbo@grenoble.cnrs.fr> (IN)

  • Nicolas Ponthieu (IPAG)

  • Juan Macias-Perez <macias@lpsc.in2p3.fr> (LPSC)

  • Andrea Catalano <catalano@lpsc.in2p3.fr> (LPSC)

  • Remi Adam <adam@lpsc.in2p3.fr> (LPSC)

• IRAM/Granada support team:

  • Carsten Kramer (Station Manager, <kramer@iram.es>)

  • Israel Hermelo (30m Continuum Pool Manager, <hermelo@iram.es>)

  • Nicolas Billot (30m Scheduler, <billot@iram.es>)

  • Claudia Marka (30m Heterodyne Pool Manager, <marka@iram.es>)

  • Albrecht Sievers (<sievers@iram.es>)

  • Robert Zylka
  • Walter Brunswig

How-to's

• Pool Preparation provides information on the observing modes offered for the continuum cameras as well as examples of the scripts that you need to prepare to observe your project.

• Observing Session provides an example of a typical session with the continuum cameras at the 30m telescope.

• Pointing sources and calibrators provides a list of pointing sources and calibrators for the IRAM 30m continuum cameras.

• For observers: Check the staus of NIKA during the observations.

• For Experts: Alignment and pointing sesion (in prep.) provides a step-by-step procedure to implement a new pointing model with NIKA

• Data Reduction Quick look analysis and Offline processing products.

• Observe GRBs

Open runs

3rd NIKA pool (Jan-Feb 2015)

The 3rd NIKA open pool will take place from the January 27th to February 10th.

For information about the accepted projects and the observers at the 30m please go to:

• 3rd NIKA pool organization.

The progress of the pool can be followed via:

• Pool data base

• TAPAS

Both databases are synchronized and can be used to write/read the logsheet.

2nd NIKA pool (November 2014)

• 2nd NIKA pool organization.

• Internal NIKA team page for organisation

1st NIKA pool (February 2014)

• 1st NIKA pool organization

• IRAM 30m pool observers for the Winter 2013 semester

• Internal NIKA team page for organisation

Available data products

To retrive the data please use the following command:

scp  xxx-yy@enter.iram.es:~/observationData/nika/v?.tar.gz  /path/in/your/computer 

where xxx-yy is your project number and v? is the version of the data to retrieve (options are v0, v1, and v2).

Technical runs

• 9th test run - Polarisation (February 2015)

  • Go to the 12th run Wiki page

• 8th test run (October 2014)

  • Go to the 9th run Wiki page

• May 2014 Dry run

  • Two slots of 4 hours scheduled for the NIKA dry run: Wed 7th May 2014 from 11:00 to 15:00 (LT), Mon 12th May 2014 from 12:00 to 16:00 (LT)

  • See the NIKA dry run organization wiki.

• 7th test run (January 2014)

  • Go to the 7th run Wiki page

• 6th test run (June 2013)

  • Go to the 6th run Wiki page

• 5th test run (November 2012)

  • Go to the 5th run Wiki page

• 4th test run (June 2012, final position, final cryostat)

  • Go to the 4th run Wiki page

• 3rd test run (October 2011, cryogen free 1^st cold stage cryostat)

  • Go to the 3rd run Wiki page

• 2nd test run (October 2010, dual band cryostat)

  • Go to the 2nd run Wiki page

• 1st test run (October 2009, 1 band cryostat on MAMBO bench, liquid He 1^st cold stage)

  • Go to the 1st run Wiki page

NIKA2

NIKA2

Author: Israel Hermelo (IRAM 30m continuum pool manager)

email: hermelo@iram.es

Created: 2013.Dec.16

This page is maintained by IH, CK, SL and the NIKA team

Last update: 2014.Dec.17