Division of Electronics, Detectors and Computing for Physics (DEDIP)

The missing mass of the universe or non-baryonic dark matter is probably made up of particles that remain to be discovered. Massive and neutral, with very weak interactions, they still escape a detection that would identify them. While conventional photons are massless, dark matter could be made up of particles of a new type, similar to massive photons. New experimental results on the search for non-baryonic matter in this form, obtained by a team of three Irfu members, have just been published in Physical Review Letters[1].

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is intended to make the spectroscopic survey of 35 million galaxies and quasars from 2020 onwards, to study precisely the properties of dark energy. Its installation, started in 2018, has recently entered a new phase with the reception and assembly of the first two spectrographs out of the 10 that the instrument will include. Irfu, partner of the project since the beginning and responsible for the cryogenic part of the spectrographs, has successfully completed this installation. The next 8 spectrographs will be installed next May and September under the coordination of the Irfu team, in partnership with the local teams.

vidéo réalisée par Victor Silva (Irfu/DIS)

Testing the equivalence principle, a fundamental principle of the general relativity developed by Albert Einstein from which the universality of free fall derives, that is the challenge undertaken by the Microscope spacecraft. The Microscope space mission, founded and operated by the CNES, The Microscope space mission, founded and operated by the CNES, designed by ONERA in collaboration with Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, CNES and ZARM (Bremen, Germany), was launched on April 25, 2016 with a single scientific instrument on board: the T-sage instrument developed by ONERA. In a study published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the Microscope team in which a researcher of the Département d’Electronique des Détecteurs et d’Informatique pour la Physique/Laboratoire AIM of the CEA-Irfu Paris-Saclay is participating, verified the validity of the equivalence principle with unprecedented precision. By taking into account carefully the noise sources, benefiting from a good knowledge of the instrument and using innovative tools such as those used in astrophysics, the team has been able to improve by a factor of 10 the previous measurement, making the previously published results more robust and consolidating the validity of the Equivalence principle.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is intended to make the spectroscopic survey of 35 million galaxies and quasars from 2020 onwards, to study precisely the properties of dark energy. Its installation, started in 2018, has recently entered a new phase with the reception and assembly of the first two spectrographs out of the 10 that the instrument will include. Irfu, partner of the project since the beginning and responsible for the cryogenic part of the spectrographs, has successfully completed this installation. The next 8 spectrographs will be installed next May and September under the coordination of the Irfu team, in partnership with the local teams.

vidéo réalisée par Victor Silva (Irfu/DIS)

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is intended to make the spectroscopic survey of 35 million galaxies and quasars from 2020 onwards, to study precisely the properties of dark energy. Its installation, started in 2018, has recently entered a new phase with the reception and assembly of the first two spectrographs out of the 10 that the instrument will include. Irfu, partner of the project since the beginning and responsible for the cryogenic part of the spectrographs, has successfully completed this installation. The next 8 spectrographs will be installed next May and September under the coordination of the Irfu team, in partnership with the local teams.

vidéo réalisée par Victor Silva (Irfu/DIS)

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is intended to make the spectroscopic survey of 35 million galaxies and quasars from 2020 onwards, to study precisely the properties of dark energy. Its installation, started in 2018, has recently entered a new phase with the reception and assembly of the first two spectrographs out of the 10 that the instrument will include. Irfu, partner of the project since the beginning and responsible for the cryogenic part of the spectrographs, has successfully completed this installation. The next 8 spectrographs will be installed next May and September under the coordination of the Irfu team, in partnership with the local teams.

vidéo réalisée par Victor Silva (Irfu/DIS)

On November 29, 2018, the first version of the ECU software for the ECLAIRs instrument was delivered.
This computer, called Gamma Camera Management and Scientific Processing Unit, will be set on the Franco-Chinese SVOM satellite, designed to study gamma-ray bursts. It will allow the management of the ECLAIRs instrument and the detection of gamma-ray bursts by the SVOM mission in real time on board. This software, under the scientific responsibility of the DAp, is produced in strong collaboration between the DAp and the DEDIP within the IRFU.