The neutrino is one of the most enigmatic ingredient of the standard model of particle physics. Because of its weak interaction with matter and despite enormous experimental progress, its nature and its fundamental properties remain unknown: Dirac / Majorana, CP violation, absolute mass scale, other flavors... Recent results from the t13 experiments Double Chooz, Daya Bay and RENO have uncovered an intriguing excess of events detected in the 4-6 MeV reconstructed energy range with respect to predictions. This spectral distortion may be a suggestion of discrepancies in models of antineutrino production in reactors. Moreover, three independent experimental anomalies (reactor anomaly, Gallium and LSND/ MiniBooNE) support the hypothesis of the existence of a new neutrino family, called sterile because not interacting through weak interaction. In this context, new data from a precise pure U235 Antineutrino spectrum are needed to resolve this open issue and to clarify the reactor anomaly. The SoLid project is an unique opportunity for the community to obtain sufficiently large and accurate data of neutrino flux at very short distance from a nuclear reactor, and then provide a reference measurement of pure 235U, essential for neutrino flux predictions used in current and future neutrino measurements. It proposes to confirm or refute the anomaly reactor and test ultimately the fourth sterile flavor. The strength of the SoLid proposal relies on both the antineutrino source and the technology of detection, which are unique. The experience takes place at BR2 research reactor of SCK-CEN (Mol, Belgium). It allows oscillation measurements at distance varying from 5.5 to 12 m from the core. In addition to this large range, the site is distinguished by its exceptionally low background environment and by having no-access to site constraint. The detector is based on an innovative technology of neutron detector, finely segmented. The use of 6LiF: ZnS layers allows a distinct discrimination of the neutron signal. In addition, the segmentation allows to locate the antineutrinos interactions and then effectively reject significant background sources. Combined with the favorable environment at BR2, our experiment provides an unprecedented sensitivity. Early 2015 a large-scale module 288kg (SM1) has been built and took “reactor ON” data during several days. This systems clearly demonstrates the capabilities of the segmented design of the detector, when combined with sophisticated data analysis techniques, leads to gains of orders of magnitude in background rejection. The physics run, with the full detector, will begin in October 2016 for a duration of two years minimum.This project is led by an international collaboration composed of eleven laboratories involving fifty physicists. Since the beginning, the three partners, Subatech, LAL and LPC have key contributions to the project: mechanical design, BR2 modelization, antineutrino spectra, Geant4/MCNP simulations and data analysis. This strong involvement allowed the coordinator to take responsablity of the SoLid analysis. Our proposal is to build 10 detection planes (320 kg) to increase the fiducial mass and the detector length, allowing us to probe the lower Dm2 phase space region. The French groups foresee to lead several specific studies into the oscillation framework to effectively probe the anomaly reactor, but also, comparing the pure U235 spectrum measured at BR2 with the data coming from the Double Chooz near detector to get an first insight in the “ 5 MeV bump” understanding. This specific contribution will consolidate our leadership in a experiment that promises to settle the question about the existence of sterile neutrino. In the longer term and for the international neutrino community, more precise neutrino flux measurements will allow to push the precision for future experiments.

Optical interferometry enables us to obtain displacement information of an object through a phase shift of reflected electromagnetic waves. An optomechanical coupling is a naturally existing feedback system in the interferometry, which has been applied to a variety of precise measurements including quantum ground state cooling of a macroscopic object, gravitational-wave detection, and nuclear magnetic resonance. The optomechanical coupling can be tuned through an initial offset to a resonant cavity mode and it is hitherto the only way to control the feedback system. Here we propose an active feedback system using the optomechanical coupling and a quantum filter that can be made of either a non-linear crystal or a cryogenic micro-resonator. The feedback system creates a resonator called "optical spring." An additional quantum feedback loop with a non-linear crystal increases the real part of the spring (signal gain enhancement), while in the foreseen conditions, a feedback loop with a cryogenic micro-resonator decreases the imaginary part of the spring (signal bandwidth enhancement). Our proposal is two-sided. First we establish proof-of-principle experiments for the two different types of quantum feedback system. In parallel, we start new experiments or rapidly promote on-going experiments to explore an innovative application of these state-of-the-art techniques. (i) Test of macroscopic quantum mechanics: The existence of a fundamental length at Planck scale leads to a modification of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. An extremely high precision measurement of a macroscopic object is required to observe a possible deviation from conventional quantum mechanics. We propose to perform three experiments with different resonators: a cryogenic micro-pillar (30 µg), optically-levitated mirrors (1 mg), and a torsion pendulum (10 mg). As possible deviations from standard quantum mechanics are expected to depend on the probed mass, a comparison of the results in our three state-of-art experiments might open a window to the quantum-classical border. (ii) Gravitational-wave detection: Gravitational waves (GW) are ripples of spacetime generated by massive astronomical events. A gravitational-wave detector is a km-scale Michelson interferometer with an optical resonator in each baseline. Both the signal gain and signal bandwidth enhancement can be used to improve the sensitivity of a gravitational-wave detector. A significant improvement can be expected at frequencies higher than a few kilo-Hertz where a number of valuable astrophysics sources are yet to be observed by currently operating detectors (a) The signal gain enhancement enables us to create a 3-km optical spring with 40-kg mirrors resonating at 3 kHz, and a gravitational-wave signal is parametrically amplified at the resonant frequencies of the spring. We propose to design a next-generation gravitational-wave detector based on this scheme after demonstrating the enhancement in the prototype experiment. (b) The signal bandwidth enhancement enables us to expand the observation band from a few hundred Hertz to a few ten kilohertz. (iii) Measurement of nuclear magnetic resonance: A simple electric LC circuit can play a role of the quantum feedback filter. Although classical thermal noise in the coil will overwrite the quantum property of our optomechanical oscillator, the change of the dynamics provides us with information of the coil. We call it Electro-Mechano-Optical (EMO) system. This transition can be applied to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Up-conversion of NMR signals from radio to optical frequencies with a metal-coated, high-Q membrane oscillator is a promising technique, with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) currently limited by Brownian noise of the membrane. Using a state-of-the-art phononic- and photonic-crystal embedded SiN membrane, we are aiming at improving both mechanical and optical Qs of the EMO system to reduce the Brownian noise and thus to boost the SNR.

The recent discovery at the Large Hadron Collider of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson of the Standard Model is a major milestone for fundamental physics. One of the main priorities for the years to come is to study the exact nature of this new boson and in particular its couplings to Standard Model particles. The Hbb+ttH@LHC project has two main goals: establishing the observation of processes in which a Higgs boson is produced in association with a weak boson or with a pair of top quarks, and decays subsequently to a pair of bottom quarks; and studying the related Higgs couplings, in particular to the top quark to test the nature of the Higgs boson and probe new physics. A 4-year program was defined by a consortium gathering four teams to exploit the data collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at LHC. This run of LHC should quadruple the amount of data already collected, at an almost doubled centre-of-mass energy. The project is built on several techniques that will improve the sensitivity beyond the current state-of-the-art, notably: hadronic triggers to take advantage of fully hadronic decay channels as well as cope with the limitations of the lepton triggers at high-luminosity; jet-substructure techniques applied to high-momentum sub-channels; improvements to bottom and charm jet identification; use of color-flow and regression techniques to improve signal reconstruction. Those improvements will lead to measurements of physics backgrounds, observation and measurements of Higgs production in association with a weak boson and a pair of top quarks, and extraction of Higgs couplings.

High performance computing (HPC) allows scientists and industries to run large numerical application on huge data volumes. The HPC is a key factor in knowledge and innovation in many fields of industry and service, with high economic and social issues: aerospace, finance and business intelligence, energy and environment, chemicals and materials, medicine and biology , digital art and games, Web and social networks, ... Today, acquiring HPC supercomputer is very expensive, making HPC unreachable to SMIs / SMEs for their research and development. The CloudPower project results from the research and development projectXtremWeb lead INRIA, CNRS, University Paris XI and ENS Lyon. Its goal is to offer a low cost Cloud HPC service for small and medium-sized innovative companies. With CloudPower, companies and scientists will run their simulations to design and develop new products on a powerful, scalable, economical, reliable and secure infrastructure. The project will lead the creation of a new and innovative company operating the platform implemented in the framework of the ANR Emergence. CloudPower will leverage on the open-source software XtremWeb-HEP previously developed by the partners. The principle of the technology is to collect the under-exploited resources on the Internet (individual PCs, internet box, servers, data centers ...) to build a virtual supercomputer providing HPC services on demand. CloudPower will implement SaaS / PaaS portal for customers and develop extensions to allow commercial exploitation of unused resources. Building on the network of SMIs from the competitiveness clusters System@tic and LyonBiopole, we will implement scenarios and/or demonstrators which illustrate the ability of CloudPower to increase competitiveness, research and marketing of innovative SMEs.

Optical interferometry now allows for extreme displacement sensitivity, often only limited by quantum noise: quantum shot noise and/or quantum radiation pressure noise (QRPN, a macroscopic version of quantum back-action), which utimately leads to the standard quantum limit (SQL), the smallest displacement observable for a mechanical resonator using standard laser sources (coherent states). The SQL has been predicted for over 35 years, originally in the context of gravitational-wave detection, but as radiation-pressure effects are extremeley weak for macroscopic mechanical resonators, it has long eluded experimental demonstration. The status of the SQL should drastically change over the next few years as the advanced gravitational-wave interferometers (Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo) should be operated at their design sensitivity within a couple of years. They should then be limited by QRPN at the lower side of their science frequency band (from 10 Hz to 50 Hz) and by QSN at the higher side (above 200 Hz and up to 10 kHz). The SQL is also of particular interest to the optomechanics field, which has experienced huge experimental progress over the last 15 years. This has recently culminated with experimental milestones such as the demonstration of a mechanical resonator cooled close to its quantum ground state, and the effect of QRPN over a mechanical membrane, experiment types closely related to the SQL. Optomechanics is obviously related to quantum measurement theory, but also to practical novel sensing devices such as atomic force microscopes (AFM) or optomechanical accelerometers. Therefore any sensitivity enhancement beyond the SQL will have important applications. The SQL can in principle be overcome using squeezed light, a research topic which has experienced considerable experimental progress as well. But combining optomechanical setups with squeezed light is still an experimental challenge. Our project is two-sided. We first plan to build, characterize and inject a squeezed bright beam into a dedicated table-top optomechanical system operated in a dilution fridge to investigate the SQL and how to further increase the displacement sensitivity beyond the SQL. This requires frequency-dependent squeezing, which we will obtain by injecting the squeezed beam into a rotation cavity. This proof-of-principle experiment will be performed at MHz frequencies to avoid many technical noise sources. As high-sensitivity measurements such as gravitational-wave interferometers in fundamental physics or AFM in applied physics are usually performed at lower frequencies, we will also investigate similar effects at lower frequency. We plan to rely on the experience gained from the high-frequency experiment to build and operate a squeezed vacuum source optimized in the audio band (10 Hz – 10 kHz). We will then take advantage of the 50-m long CALVA platform at LAL Orsay as a rotation cavity to demonstrate frequency-dependent squeezing with a corner frequency 1 kHz and below.