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Deconvolution serves as a computational means of removing the effect of optical aberrations from recorded images and is employed in many technical and scientific fields of study. In most imaging scenarios the nature of the blurring kernel or point-spread function (PSF) of the imaging system is unknown and both the object and PSF can be estimated using different forms of mathematical optimisation. The Tangential Iterative Projections (TIP) algorithm is a multi-frame deconvolution framework where multiple images can be combined to obtain a single estimate of the object. It is shown here that this framework may be also used for single-frame deconvolution with a few modifications to the algorithm. This step from multiple to one frame is non-trivial and greatly improves the applicability of the TIP framework to most imaging scenarios., Comment: OL original submission

Inhomogeneities in the refractive index of a biological sample can introduce phase aberrationsin microscopy systems, severely impairing the quality of images. Adaptive optics can be employed to correct for phase aberrations and improve image quality. However, conventional adaptive optics can only correct a single phase aberration for the whole field of view (isoplanatic correction) while, due to the three dimensional nature of biological tissues, sample induced aberrations in microscopy often vary throughout the field of view (anisoplanatic aberration), limiting significantly the effectiveness of adaptive optics. This paper reports on a new approach for aberration correction in laser scanning confocal microscopy, in which a spatial light modulator is used to generate multiple excitation points in the sample to simultaneously scan different portions of the field of view with completely independent correction, achieving anisoplanatic compensation of sample induced aberrations. The method was tested in 150 {\mu}m thick whole Drosophila brains, showing a dramatic improvement in resolution and sharpness when compared to conventional isoplanatic adaptive optics., Comment: 11 pages paper with 6 figures

Spectroscopy of antihydrogen has the potential to yield high-precision tests of the CPT theorem and shed light on the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe. The ALPHA antihydrogen trap at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator aims to prepare a sample of antihydrogen atoms confined in an octupole-based Ioffe trap and to measure the frequency of several atomic transitions. We describe our techniques to directly measure the antiproton temperature and a new technique to cool them to below 10 K. We also show how our unique position-sensitive annihilation detector provides us with a highly sensitive method of identifying antiproton annihilations and effectively rejecting the cosmic-ray background., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

We present the results of an experiment to search for trapped antihydrogen atoms with the ALPHA antihydrogen trap at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator. Sensitive diagnostics of the temperatures, sizes, and densities of the trapped antiproton and positron plasmas have been developed, which in turn permitted development of techniques to precisely and reproducibly control the initial experimental parameters. The use of a position-sensitive annihilation vertex detector, together with the capability of controllably quenching the superconducting magnetic minimum trap, enabled us to carry out a high-sensitivity and low-background search for trapped synthesised antihydrogen atoms. We aim to identify the annihilations of antihydrogen atoms held for at least 130 ms in the trap before being released over ~30 ms. After a three-week experimental run in 2009 involving mixing of 10^7 antiprotons with 1.3 10^9 positrons to produce 6 10^5 antihydrogen atoms, we have identified six antiproton annihilation events that are consistent with the release of trapped antihydrogen. The cosmic ray background, estimated to contribute 0.14 counts, is incompatible with this observation at a significance of 5.6 sigma. Extensive simulations predict that an alternative source of annihilations, the escape of mirror-trapped antiprotons, is highly unlikely, though this possibility has not yet been ruled out experimentally., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures