Highlights 2017
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) consortium brings together 1300 scientists from 32 countries. They have published their scientific aims in a document over 200 pages long. This is the result of several years of work, and includes contributions from approximately fifteen Irfu researchers involved in X-ray and gamma-ray observatories (Fermi, Integral, XMM-Newton, H.E.S.S., etc.).
The stars do not play dice! It is the extraordinary discovery that the researchers of the Department of Astrophysics-Laboratoire AIM of the CEA-Irfu made by succeeding in determining the orientation in the space of the axis of rotation of stars belonging to two clusters of stars, thanks to asteroseismology. About 70% of the observed stars have perfectly aligned axes of rotation, in formal contradiction with the star formation models which predict that these axes of rotation should be randomly distributed. Numerical simulations showed that, most likely, these stars had managed to retain the initial rotational motion of a cloud that gave rise to the cluster. This discovery, if confirmed in other clusters, could lead to reconsideration of the fundamental processes of star formation. These works make headlines in the journal Nature Astronomy of March 13, 2017
Watch the author's interview :
The mysterious alignment of the rotation axis of stars 
The PILOT astrophysics experiment has been launched the 17th April under a stratospheric balloon from Alice Springs in central Australia. The aim is to observe the polarization of the emission of dust particles present in the interstellar medium of our Galaxy and the nearby galaxies. With a mass of nearly one ton, PILOT [1] uses the biggest balloons launched by the National Center for Space Studies (CNES). It was developed by the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (CNRS / CNES / Paul Sabatier University) and the Institute of Space Astrophysics (CNRS / Université Paris-Sud) and the Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe (CEA-Irfu). Detectors capable of detecting infrared radiation from dust have been developed at the CEA and are the result of research done to realize the PACS camera that equiped the Herschel space observatory.
The Cassini probe will finish this September 15, 2017 its mission of more than 13 years around Saturn. On board, the smallest instrument, a detector only 5 millimetres long, was developed by the Department of Astrophysics of CEA-Irfu, which carried it out in collaboration with CEA/LETI (Electronics and Information Technology Laboratory). This detector, which is at the heart of the CIRS (Composite InfraRed Spectrometer), has made it possible to measure the temperature of Saturn's rings with an unequalled resolution and has also made it possible to discover many molecules in the atmosphere of Saturn and its Titan satellite.
Using a range of detectors developed with the participation of the CEA, physicists at CEA-Irfu have scrutinized the region from which the gravitational wave was detected on August 17, 2017 by LIGO-VIRGO facilities. Unlike the four previous detections of waves of the same type discovered since 2015, this new vibration of space, called GW170817, is of different origin. It does not result from the fusion of two black holes but of two densest known stars, the neutron stars.
Thanks to the INTEGRAL satellite in orbit, the astrophysicists of the Department of Astrophysics-AIM Laboratory (CEA, CNRS, Univ Paris Diderot) were able to show that the wave GW170817 was accompanied by a gamma burst, a brief emission of gamma rays emitted just 2 seconds after the fusion of the two stars. By pointing in record time one of the giant telescopes of the VLT (Chile), they also participated in the study of the visible light emission that followed the fusion, showing in particular that this light was not polarized.
Physicists from the Department of Particle Physics of CEA-Irfu also analyzed the data obtained by the ANTARES experiments for neutrino and H.E.S.S. for the search for very high energy gamma rays, showing that the GW170817 wave did not provide detectable emission.
The study of this new phenomenon, never observed directly so far, offers many exciting perspectives for astrophysics as the possibility of better understanding the origin of the heavy elements of the Universe and even the ability to measure in a complete independent way the rate of expansion of the Universe.
All of these outstanding results are published in a series of articles presented in the journals Nature, Astrophysical Journal and Physical Review Letters on October 16, 2017.
For more information : see the French version
Using a range of detectors developed with the participation of the CEA, physicists at CEA-Irfu have scrutinized the region from which the gravitational wave was detected on August 17, 2017 by LIGO-VIRGO facilities. Unlike the four previous detections of waves of the same type discovered since 2015, this new vibration of space, called GW170817, is of different origin. It does not result from the fusion of two black holes but of two densest known stars, the neutron stars.
Thanks to the INTEGRAL satellite in orbit, the astrophysicists of the Department of Astrophysics-AIM Laboratory (CEA, CNRS, Univ Paris Diderot) were able to show that the wave GW170817 was accompanied by a gamma burst, a brief emission of gamma rays emitted just 2 seconds after the fusion of the two stars. By pointing in record time one of the giant telescopes of the VLT (Chile), they also participated in the study of the visible light emission that followed the fusion, showing in particular that this light was not polarized.
Physicists from the Department of Particle Physics of CEA-Irfu also analyzed the data obtained by the ANTARES experiments for neutrino and H.E.S.S. for the search for very high energy gamma rays, showing that the GW170817 wave did not provide detectable emission.
The study of this new phenomenon, never observed directly so far, offers many exciting perspectives for astrophysics as the possibility of better understanding the origin of the heavy elements of the Universe and even the ability to measure in a complete independent way the rate of expansion of the Universe.
All of these outstanding results are published in a series of articles presented in the journals Nature, Astrophysical Journal and Physical Review Letters on October 16, 2017.
For more information : see the French version
