Created in 1997, the LSBB is located in the heart of the Luberon Regional Nature Park in the Vaucluse. Initially a military facility, the LSBB has been converted into a research laboratory whose activities have been contributing to the development of knowledge and know-how in many scientific fields for nearly 25 years. A Support and Research Unit under the supervision of Avignon University and...
Muography (or muon radiography) is an imaging technique that relies on the use of cosmogenic muons as a free and safe radiation source. It can be applied in various fields such as archaeology, civil engineering, geology, nuclear reactor monitoring, nuclear waste characterization, underground surveys, etc. In such applications, sometimes deploying muon detectors is challenging due to logistics,...
A commercial 3-axis high temperature SQUID system, cooled with liquid nitrogen, is currently operating unshielded as a geomagnetic sensor in an aluminium dewar at SANSA Space Science, South Africa. The collaborative project between South Africa (SANSA), France (LSBB) and Czech Republic (CTU) is aimed at continuous, low-noise geomagnetic space weather measurements. The environment is urban with...
A giant magnetic antenna has been installed at the mountain top surface of the LSBB site since 2010, initially dedicated to excite a SQUID magnetometer situated 520 meter underground. The antenna is a 300 meter long domestic cable laying on the ground and covering an area of 5600 m². Its unusual size and its location on a pluri-disciplinary instrumented site allows to make it an original and...
Vulcano is the southernmost of the seven islands forming the Aeolian volcanic archipelago. This island harbors a developed hydrothermal system and is the place where the first hyperthermophilic marine archaeon, Pyrodictium occultum was isolated. Shallow hydrothermal systems have been recently the subject of numerous investigations as they constitute easy access extreme environments, and may be...
Transmission muography is a rising technique in domains such as geophysics and civil engineering. It provides dynamic information about the density distribution around the detector thanks to the attenuation of a natural, passive source: cosmic muons. This long-reach technology provides complementary information to classical prospecting tools for the study of active, heterogenous...
Geophysical measurements using highly sensitive Superconductive Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) sensors have been in use since more than two decades. Owing to their extreme sensitivity, SQUIDs require very low noise environment for stable operation. The requirement of unshielded environment for geophysical data acquisition further pushes the need to find ways to reduce unwanted cultural...
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a major term of the water cycle which remains one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in hydrology. It is necessary to better understand this component and to develop new approaches to improve its quantification. Gravimetry is a geophysical method that measures variations in the Earth's gravity field “g”. Superconducting gravimeters (SG) provide continuous and...
Sequences of bipolar pulses, which are believed to identify the initiation of the majority of both cloud-to-ground (CG) and intracloud lightning flashes in electromagnetic recordings, have been regularly detected by magnetic loop antennas installed at the external site of LSBB at Vestale on the Plateau d’Albion. Since 2013, numerous studies on lightning initiation based on the LSBB data...
The work proposed in this presentation is part of a global project dealing
with the characterisation of heterogeneous media by both electromagnetic and
mechanical full waveform inversion. Indeed Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) of
seismic reflection (SR) or Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) data is an efficient
approach to reconstruct subsurface physical parameters with high resolution.
We...
During the last 20 years muon tomography has been recognized for its contributions to various domains of science like Volcanology, Hydrology, Archaeology and many more. Its impact is especially prominent in the case of Volcanoes either as a standalone remote imaging technique or in combination with other more traditional Geophysical methods. Being non-invasive, muography, has no adverse impact...
There are over 27, 313 known Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), i.e., asteroids within 4.488 × 107 km from Earth, out of which 1, 254 are on risk list according to ESA’s Near Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC). Hence, advancing the knowledge of mineral composition, interior structure, and potential threats of planetary bodies is very important and has been the motivation behind space...
Located far from anthropological disturbances and with low seismic and magnetic background noise profiles, the LSBB facility is the ideal location for a new hybrid detector for the study of space-time strain. This new concept, the MIGA infrastructure \cite{Canuel2018}, utilizes an array of atom interferometers manipulated by the same beam, the resonant optical field of a 150 m long optical...
Radiation patterns of combined parallel and perpendicular motions from the accelerated relativistic particle at low and high frequencies of the bremsstrahlung process with an external lightning electric field were explained. The primary outcome was that radiation patterns have four relative maxima with two forward peaking and two backward peaking lobes. The asymmetry of the radiation pattern,...
Muogarphy applications have been broadened in the last years thanks to the advances on particle detectors used to perform the measurements. Among the different technologies, the Irfu group is using multiplexed Micromegas detectors since almost ten years. Telescopes based on this technology have showed their capabilities and performance in such a different applications as archaeology, civil...
In 2020, a temporary seismic experiment has been conducted by the CEA/DAM and the CNRS/LSBB with the support of more than 18 different academic laboratories or companies. During this experiment, the seismic wave field generated by several small active sources has been recorded in 3 dimensions on the site of the Laboratoire Souterrain Bas Bruit (LSBB), Rustrel, France. Taking advantage of the...
All lightning strokes generate electromagnetic pulses –atmospherics– which can travel over distances of thousands of kilometers. Night-side atmospherics show typical frequency dispersion signatures caused by sub-ionospheric propagation. Their analysis can be used to determine the distance to the source lightning, and therefore it represents a safe tool for investigation of distant...
Karst aquifers contribute significantly to water supply. Sustainable management of karst water resources requires a good understanding of karst recharge processes. Most karst aquifers are fastly reacting systems, in which short transit times (0 to 6 months) are common. However, few natural tracers are usable in this time range. In a recent work currently under review (Serene et al., 2022), we...
The deterrence ground-to-ground force has to be ready to answer to the President’s order in all time and at the highest rate of availability.
In order to guarantee the counter efficiency, this system must be invulnerable. For this purpose, the substructure of the different facilities meets very severe requirement for protection and security. We are the heirs of this doctrine.
