Identifying the sources of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) is one of the most pressing questions in high-energy astrophysics. The advent of high-statistics and high-quality data, most prominently obtained by the Pierre Auger Observatory, has radically changed our understanding of the high-energy Universe, though still without disclosing the cosmic-ray sources. The proposed project addresses this question and aims at identifying source classes that correlate best with existing observational data (direction, energy distribution, and primary mass). A novelty of the proposed approach will be a complete study of bursting sources starting from the modeling of selected source classes, including hadronic interactions within the source, and over the propagation down to Earth, to predicting the UHECR sky as a function of energy and primary mass. Ultra-high-energy sources should be able to confine cosmic rays within a sufficiently magnetized and large region to accelerate them up to the highest observed energies, which imposes in turn a minimum magnetic luminosity. Few, if any, astrophysical sources are able to sustain such a luminosity in the electromagnetic band over a long period of time. This pushes the proponents of the MICRO project to investigate further bursting sources hosted by AGN and starburst galaxies. Intermediate-scale anisotropies of UHECRs can inform us on the direction and on the flux of nearby or most luminous source candidates relatively to an isotropic background built up by fainter objects. The latter component can be estimated from constraints on the luminosity functions of source candidates as a function of redshift. The absolute UHECR flux of each resolved source can be in turn determined relatively to its contribution to the all-sky UHECR spectrum, emphasizing the importance of joint constraints from spectral and anisotropy observables. Besides constraints from arrival directions and the all-sky spectrum, composition informs us on the distance distribution of the sources, as the energy-loss length of an UHECR depends on its nature. Thus, the combined fit of transient source models to arrival direction, spectral, and composition data would constrain the direction, distance, and absolute flux of the source candidates. The objectives specifically addressed in the MICRO project will provide important answers to the leading question of identifying the sources of UHECRs (i) how do burst-like signatures (GRBs, AGN-flares) fit the cosmic-ray data, (i) how can we constrain the 3D distribution of sources from available UHECR observables, and (iii) could astrophysical high-energy neutrinos, some high-energy gamma rays, and UHECRs come from the same bursting sources. The MICRO consortium comprises four Institutions with experienced PIs. They bring in the complementary expertise that is needed to successfully address the ambitious goals of the novel project within a time period of three years.

The NEWS project is dedicated to the direct search for very-low mass Dark Matter particles named WIMPs, from 0.1 to 10 GeV. Given the recent absence of evidence at LHC for SUSY and departure from the standard model of particle physics, the Dark Matter, an essential ingredient for understanding our Universe, appears as one of the only evidence for new physics. In particular, in a number of new models, the preferred particle candidates are less massive than anticipated. Searches for such light Dark Matter require new detection technology. The goal is to build a large (2 m diameter) radio-pure spherical gaseous detector that will operate at SNOLAB underground environment with the aim of reaching a much higher sensitivity for light Dark Matter search than any other experiment. The biggest part of the budget (2 M$) is already, thanks to a grant of excellence, assured by Queen’s University and it will be dedicated to the vessel and the infrastructure. The ANR request concerns the most critical parts required to reach the expected performance: the low-radioactivity sensor, the electronics, the DAQ and the calibration system. An existing detector at LSM underground laboratory will act as a prototype, where the upgrades for the SNOLAB detector will be validated. Indeed the very competitive background level reached by this detector, compared to existing experiments, makes it an ideal facility for testing key components of the SNOLAB project. The main characteristics of the detector are: sub-keV energy threshold, fiducialisation and background rejection by pulse shape analysis, ability to operate at pressures up to 10 bars, tens of kg of gas with various light targets such as H, He and Ne nuclei. Such a detector will have an unprecedented sensitivity to address the 0.1-10 GeV mass range of particles with spin independent nucleon cross section as low as 10-6 pb. We would like to point out that, for a modest cost, this project could have extraordinary scientific impact.

High speed imaging is a booming activity with the ideal application of CMOS technology imagers. It makes it possible to acquire a fast single event at a fast sampling and frame rate and to observe it at a reduced frame rate. It finds many applications in motion analysis, explosives, ballistic, biomechanics research, crash test, airbag deployment, manufacturing, production line monitoring, deformation, droplet formation, fluid dynamics, particle, spray, shock & vibration, etc. High speed video imaging is currently driven by some industrial manufacturers such as Photron, Redlake, Drs Hadland, which design their own sensors. The current industrial most efficient imagers offer a speed of 22,000 frames per second (fps) for a spatial resolution of 1280x800 pixels, i.e. 22 Gpixel/s. This speed is not restricted by the electronics of the pixel but by the sensors chip inputs/outputs interconnections. The conventional operation mode based on extracting the sensor data at each acquisition of a new image is a real technological barrier that limits the scope of high speed cameras to the study of transient phenomena that last for a few hundred microseconds. The FALCON project's main goal is to overcome this technological barrier, increasing the acquisition speed by three orders of magnitude by proposing a sensor capable of taking up to 100 million fps while increasing the sampling rate up to 10 TeraPixel/s. To accomplish this, the classical approach of extracting image sensor should be abandoned in favor of a new one which makes it possible to eradicate the inputs/outputs bottleneck. Several studies mention the realization of high-speed image sensors based on the principle of "burst" imagers (BIS Burst Image Sensor). Since it is impossible to get the frames out of the sensor as they are acquired, the idea is to store all the images in the sensor and execute the readout afterward, after the end of the event to be recorded. So far, all the developed BIS based on this principle use a totally analog approach in the form of a monolithic sensor. The size of the embedded memory is generally limited to a hundred frames, the pixel pitch is around 50 µm and the acquisition rate is in the order of 10 Mfps for large 2D arrays. Furthermore, research works mention little data about the signal to noise ratio (SNR), but the leakage current of the storage capacities degrades the signal quality and the effect is more noticeable when the readout duration is high, i.e. when the number of stored images is large. This phenomenon limits, once again, the number of storable images in analog BIS forms. In general, a maximal SNR of 45 dB is obtained. The FALCON project is based on a device concept in total disruption with previous works, by implementing the possibilities offered by the emergent microelectronics 3D technologies in order to increase the performance of this type of sensor while also adding more features to it. A PhD work started in 2012 in collaboration between the CEA Leti and the ICube laboratory helped to determine an optimal sensor architecture that takes advantage of the 3D technology. A particularity of the proposed architecture is the in-line analog to digital conversion at full speed. This study shows that the proposed new approach increases the number of stored images, while increasing the signal to noise ratio. It has also brought light to the potential problems of heat dissipation inherent to both fast circuits and 3D technologies. The methodological aspects of the design are also at the center of the project seeing that architecture/partitioning and electronic/thermal co-designs are necessary to carry out this type of conception. New tools and methods for the design of integrated heterogeneous systems are needed. The ultimate objective of the project is a high definition 1200x1200 pixels, 10 Mega fps with more than 1000 frames embedded digital memory. The project is pushing the performances of all the system bricks to the state of the art.

The observation of the sky at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths in the past years contributed to tremendous improvements in our understanding of a great variety of scientific topics ranging from the star formation in the Milky Way to the measurement of cosmological parameters. Following the recent results obtained by the Planck and Herschel satellites, the advent of a millimetre camera, capable of surveying large areas of the sky at a high-angular resolution, with a high sensitivity and a large field of view, will continue to reveal the details of the formation and evolution of structures throughout the Universe. The NIKA2 camera is a next-generation instrument for millimetre astronomy. It is operated at 100 mK and will be installed in June 2015 on the 30-m telescope of IRAM (Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique). NIKA2 will observe the sky at 150 and 260 GHz with a wide field of view (6.5 arcmin) at high-angular resolution (nominally 18 and 12 arcsec, respectively), and state-of-art sensitivity (requirement 20 and 30 mJy.s1/2, respectively). It will also have polarization capabilities at 260 GHz. With its high mapping speed (5000 detectors in total) and dual band observation, NIKA2 will revolutionize our view of the cold Universe. No other instrument exists or is even planned for the coming years to compete with NIKA2 in terms of sensitivity, angular resolution, polarization capabilities and available time of observation in the world. The NIKA2 consortium is an international collaboration gathering 14 laboratories from France UK and Italy that has successfully answered in 2011 a call for tender issued by the IRAM concerning the next generation large field continuum instrumentation at the 30-m telescope. The first phase (2011-2015) of the project has been partially funded by the ANR. It addresses the design, building and testing of the NIKA2 camera. This phase is completed and the camera is taking the first laboratory images in the two bands, including the polarization channel. The NIKA2 schedule for the installation in June 2015 at the 30-m telescope has been approved by IRAM. During this first phase, a prototype camera (NIKA1, dual-band with a total of ~300 KIDs) has also been built and installed at the IRAM 30-m telescope. As a test bench for the final NIKA2 instrument, the NIKA1 camera has been optimized during the two observation campaigns on November 2012 and June 2013. Current NIKA1 performance fulfills already the NIKA2 requirements in terms of sensitivity. The second phase (2016-2020) regards the scientific exploitation of this future world-leading instrument. Indeed, 1300 hours have been allocated to the NIKA2 consortium, i.e. the largest amount of guaranteed time ever given by IRAM to a single collaboration. Our NIKA2Sky project is centered on the three large programs led by French institutes, that have each been granted 300 hours of observation (900 hr in total). The scientific program is dedicated to the study of the inner structure of galaxy clusters via Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect, and of star formation at low and high redshift, both by studying the role of magnetic fields on sub-parsec scales (down to a resolution of ~ 2000 AU) in our Galaxy, and mapping the dusty star forming galaxies up to redshifts 6. We request a financial support to hire 4 post-docs and organize collaboration meetings as well as a workshop to ensure a high visibility of the results obtained with NIKA2. This support would capitalize on our instrumental efforts, funded by the ANR, which led to the building of a unique and world-leading instrument in millimetre astronomy.

The aim of the CUPID-1 project is the development of a complete bolometric detector system capable of investigating neutrinoless double beta decay – 2b0n- with unprecedented sensitivity. The project will be dedicated to the design of a detector tower capable to be operated in a next generation 2b0n experiment at the ton scale and to test one of these towers as a final validation of the technology. The crucial innovative feature of the project is to fully develop and optimize an integrated bolometric system combining thermal and mechanical considerations, optimization of light collection, MC simulations and selection of radiopure materials, including an extensive cryogenic tests campaign, that will allow to reach the background goal below 10-4 counts/(keV kg y). This single tower will be also a competitive 2ß0n experiment at the international level and the most sensitive ever for 100Mo.