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

Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe

« The Astrophysics Division (DAp)

The Fermi telescope's third catalog of gamma-ray pulsars

Nov 27, 2023

The Fermi telescope's third catalog of gamma-ray pulsars

The majority of the 3400 known pulsars are "seen" in radio waves, and are located in the Milky Way. The 340 pulsars seen in gamma-rays all share the common feature of being among the 10-15% most powerful pulsars.

An international team led by French researchers, including those at DAp, publishes on November 28, 2023 in the Astrophysical Journal a compilation of 340 pulsars seen in gamma rays (30 MeV - 30 GeV) with the LAT space telescope on NASA's Fermi satellite. Prior to Fermi's launch in 2008, only 11 pulsars were known in gamma rays. This new catalog brings together all the characteristics of all known gamma-ray pulsars.

Sep 26, 2023

Fermi is 15 years old!

Fermi-LAT telescope continues systematic γ-ray survey NASA's Fermi satellite was launched in June 2008, and the Fermi-LAT telescope has been carrying out a systematic γ-ray survey of near-GeV energies covering most of the sky every 3 hours (and the whole sky in no more than a week) since August 2008.

Fermi is 15 years old!

Could the GRB221009A burst of October 9, 2022 be the most violent starburst of our millennium?

May 11, 2023

Could the GRB221009A burst of October 9, 2022 be the most violent starburst of our millennium?

On October 9, 2022, at 13:16 and 59.99 seconds, a gamma-ray burst (GRB) dazzled almost all the X-ray and gamma ray detectors available at the time. Since their discovery, multi-wavelength telescopes in space and on the ground have continuously monitored these events. This outburst, named GRB221009A, shook the world community of astrophysicists, who have since been analysing it to understand the physical phenomena that triggered this most intense burst of energy in our history.

Mar 17, 2023

Towards a new scenario of magnetar formation

Magnetars are neutron stars known for their wide variety of electromagnetic emissions coming from the dissipation of their extreme magnetic fields, which are the strongest known in the Universe and can reach 1015 Gauss, or 10 billion times that of the strongest magnet created by humans.

Towards a new scenario of magnetar formation

Particle acceleration in the supernova remnant SN1006

Sep 09, 2022

Particle acceleration in the supernova remnant SN1006

The origin of Galactic cosmic rays, their energy source and their acceleration process raise many questions more than 100 years after their discovery by Victor Hess in 1912. What are their sources of acceleration and energy? What are the acceleration mechanisms and their properties? If these are not the only sources considered, strong shocks in supernova remnants constitute one of the privileged places of acceleration which allows the acceleration of particles by the mechanism of diffusive acceleration.

May 06, 2022

Hyperfast white dwarfs and stellar explosions

New numerical simulations probe the origin of type Ia supernovae

While type Ia supernovae are considered as highly symmetric supernovae, the explosion in a tight binary system composed of two white dwarfs revises this paradigm. An international team (Japan, Canada, France), including a researcher from the Department of Astrophysics/AIM Laboratory of CEA Paris-Saclay, publishes a study in the Astrophysical Journal that reveals that the distinctive asymmetric structures of such a supernova leave post-mortem imprints on the morphology of the ejected matter.

Hyperfast white dwarfs and stellar explosions

Team glimpses before a long journey

Apr 14, 2022

Team glimpses before a long journey

The Eclairs and MXT instruments of the SVOM mission delivered to CNES-Toulouse

The French teams of the ECLAIRs and MXT telescopes, instruments at the heart of the SVOM mission, experienced an important moment during March 2022. First, a general review of the two projects took place at CNES in Toulouse in front of a group of experts. This review allowed to verify that the two instruments meet the technical specifications and will be able to carry out the scientific mission.

Feb 17, 2022

Kepler under the gamma-ray eye

The Fermi-LAT space telescope reveals the nature of particles accelerated in this historic supernova remnant.

The explosion of a star produces a shock wave that propagates at more than 5000 km/s for centuries and it is thought that these shocks are the main source of highly energetic particles called cosmic-rays. Studying the high-energy photon emission of supernova remnants allows us to probe the nature of the accelerated particles, their energy and their composition.

Kepler under the gamma-ray eye

MXT ready to go

Dec 10, 2021

MXT ready to go

Successful of the calibration of the complete flighting model

The X-ray telescope MXT, one of the two instruments under French responsibility onboard the SVOM Chinese-French satellite payload, has just completed an important step in the project's progress, the calibration of the complete flying instrument.

Sep 14, 2021

Gammapy selected as official analysis software for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)

On June 1, 2021, the open source software solution Gammapy was selected by the CTA (Cherenkov telescope array) observatory as a high-level analysis tool (Science Tools) for the reduction and modeling of the data collected by its future network of telescopes being deployed in Chile and the Canary Islands.

Gammapy selected as official analysis software for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)

A lobster eye to track cosmic explosions

May 28, 2021

A lobster eye to track cosmic explosions

The MXT camera for the SVOM mission has just been assembled and delivered by the CEA

An X-ray camera, intended to equip the Sino-French SVOM satellite, has just been assembled and delivered by scientists and technicians from the Institute for Research on the Fundamental Laws of the Universe (CEA/Irfu). This high-tech prototype will capture high-energy photons (X-rays) emitted during the explosion of massive stars or the fusion of dense stars. The camera, particularly compact and innovative, integrates in a very limited volume, a complete detection chain, an active thermal control and a filter wheel.

May 27, 2021

Envelope and star merging

Numerical simulations trace the origin of stellar black hole mergers

Since the interferometers of the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected gravitational waves from the merging of two black holes, black hole binaries have been among the celestial objects that most interrogate scientists.

Envelope and star merging

New members in the gamma-ray zoo

May 20, 2020

New members in the gamma-ray zoo

The fourth catalog of Fermi-LAT sources comes on line

The Fermi-LAT collaboration has published its fourth source catalog, named 4FGL. Based on eight years of data, it contains 5064 celestial objects emitting gamma rays at energies around 1 GeV, adding more than 2000 high-energy sources to the previous collection (published in 2015). More than one fourth of the objects are of unknown nature, calling for numerous follow-up studies.

Dec 21, 2019

The European Space Agency is shaping its science programme for the period 2035-2050

After the Horizon 2000 programme started in 1983, followed by its extension Horizon 2000 Plus, the European Space Agency (ESA) is committed until 2035 into the Cosmic Vision programme that includes the launches of Athena (2031) and LISA (2034). To plan its scientific priorities beyond this date, ESA has solicited the community through a call for ideas/projects.

Voyage 2050

Have we found the heart of the supernova?

Dec 04, 2019

Have we found the heart of the supernova?

The hot heart of the SN 1987A supernova

An international team, led by astronomers from Cardiff University, with the contribution of the Astrophysics Department of CEA-Irfu, may have spotted for the first time the compact remains of the last star explosion visible by eye that occurred on February 23, 1987 in a nearby galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, only 160 000 light-years away.

Oct 06, 2019

First results of the SVOM mission before launch !

Optical follow-up of gravitionnal waves

The first results of the space mission SVOM (for Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) have just fallen before the launch scheduled for the end of 2021. How is this possible? Quite simply because this ambitious Franco-Chinese mission, which aims at studying gamma-ray bursts of the Universe, is also developing a network of ground-based cameras able to detect the emission of visible light that follows the outbreak of these bursts, the most violent known explosions.

First results of the SVOM mission before launch !

Gravitational waves to detect exoplanets

Jul 08, 2019

Gravitational waves to detect exoplanets

The LISA experiment will be able to detect planets throughout the Galaxy

The recent detections of gravitational waves, tiny vibrations of space-time, have opened a new window in the observation of the Universe. Two researchers, including Camilla Danielski from the Astrophysics Department of CEA-Irfu, have just demonstrated that, when these waves are emitted by two dense stars in orbit, they can be disturbed if a planet is in orbit around this pair of stars.

Mar 20, 2019

Smoke signals from the massive black hole of the Galaxy

Two chimneys of hot gas found around the central back hole

Thanks to the X-ray satellites Chandra and XMM-Newton, an international team including the Department of Astrophysics of CEA-Irfu has just discovered the existence of two bubbles of hot gas escaping to distances of about 500 light-years, on both sides of the massive black hole environment, in the center of our galaxy.

Smoke signals from the massive black hole of the Galaxy

High resolution with the Hitomi satellite

Nov 08, 2018

High resolution with the Hitomi satellite

Outstanding results from this Japanese X-rays observatory

Despite a short period of activity, the japanese space agency (Jaxa) Hitomi satellite has shown its full potential by delivering relevant information’s on several celestial objects.

May 10, 2018

A new window on the early Universe and the multi-messenger transient sky

THESEUS pre-selected for an ESA M5 mission

On May 7, 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the three selected space missions, out of the 25 proposed, for the fifth ESA middle class mission in its scientific program Cosmic Vision, whose launch date is planned in 2032. One of these three missions is the THESEUS project (Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor), a project developed in recent years by a large European consortium in which the Astrophysics Department-AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu plays a major role.

A new window on the early Universe and the multi-messenger transient sky

The largest catalog ever published of very high energy gamma ray sources in the Galaxy

Apr 09, 2018

The largest catalog ever published of very high energy gamma ray sources in the Galaxy

The HESS international collaboration, to which CNRS and CEA contribute, has published the results of fifteen years of gamma ray observations of the Milky Way. Its telescopes installed in Namibia have studied populations of pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants, as well as microquasars, never before detected in gamma rays. These studies are supplemented by precise measurements such as those of the diffuse emission at the center of our Galaxy.

Feb 22, 2018

An amateur astronomer captures the early birth of a supernova

The very first moments of a star explosion

An unprecedented observation of a supernova, an explosion of a massive star, was captured in its early days by an amateur astronomer, at the exact moment when the supernova became visible in the sky.

An amateur astronomer captures the early birth of a supernova

The fusion of two hyperdense stars makes the Universe resonate

Oct 16, 2017

The fusion of two hyperdense stars makes the Universe resonate

The discovery of a new type of gravitational wave

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.

Oct 06, 2017

Science with the CTA observatory

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.).

Science with the CTA observatory

« Siphoning » of a star : reconstitution by laser

Jun 13, 2016

« Siphoning » of a star : reconstitution by laser

A laboratory scale-model of accretion column onto a highly magnetized dense star

Scientists from a large international collaboration (Oxford, AWE, CEA, LULI, Observatoire de Paris, University of Michigan, University of York and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) have succeeded for the first time in generating a laboratory analogue of a strong shock that is produced when matter falls at very high speed on the surface of extremely dense stars called white dwarfs.

Feb 29, 2016

Gust of antimatter in a microquasar

An exceptional flaring activity from a galactic black hole revealed by the INTEGRAL satellite

Analysis of the high-energy emission from the microquasar V404 Cygni has lead to the discovery of gusts of electron and positron (the electron anti-particle) plasma. This amazing discovery was possible thanks to the exquisite sensitivity of the INTEGRAL/SPI spectrometer during a strong outburst of the source in June 2015. These findings show that microquasars can be very efficient to provide significant pairs electron-positron and thus can be considered somehow as “antimatter factories”.

Gust of antimatter in a microquasar

Exploration of the hot Universe

Feb 17, 2016

Exploration of the hot Universe

Launch of the Japanese X-ray Astronomy satellite Astro-H

The X-ray astronomy satellite Astro-H was successfully launched on 17 February 2016 at 17H 45 (UT 8H45) from the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The satellite was put into orbit 14 min later and the first tests started. ASTRO-H is a JAXA / NASA mission under the Japanese leadership and with an ESA participation. This new observatory aims to observe and study the hot and energetic Universe. Astro-H embeds several instruments that when combined cover the spectral band 0.3-600 keV.

Jan 07, 2016

Surprising change in the heart of a supernova remnant

Recent change in the optical and gamma-ray polarization observed in the center of the Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula, thought for decades to be a "standard candle", has recently seen this status challenged by the observation of intense high-energy gamma rays flares. An Irish and French team (centre for Astronomy of the Université of Galway and Service d’Astrophysique from CEA–Irfu ) has stressed this finding by observing for the first time a change of polarization in visible and gamma-ray light in the central region of the nebula from 2005 to 2012.

Surprising change in the heart of a supernova remnant

Instabilities at the surface of magnetic white dwarfs.

Jun 22, 2015

Instabilities at the surface of magnetic white dwarfs.

The enigma of the quasi-periodic oscillations

A team of researchers from CEA (Astrophysical Department and CEA-DAM) and the LUTH Laboratory (Paris Observatory) has just published a comprehensive study of an enigmatic phenomenon of quasi-periodic oscillations at the surface of strongly magnetic white dwarfs also called "Polars ". These dense stars are orbiting a companion and capture its material that falls freely toward the white dwarf poles. Strongly heated to millions of degrees, the hot gas or plasma then emits mainly in X-rays.

Sep 30, 2014

2014, a new start for SVOM

Progress and involvement of the CEA into this chinese and french space mission

2014 has been a fruitful year for SVOM (Space-based multiband astronomical Variable Objects Monitor), a chinese and french space mission dedicated to the study of gamma-ray bursts. The decisions taken at the highest level, the governments in March and the respective space agencies in August, restart the project after a frozen period. As a direct result, two important meetings of the consortium (kick-off meeting) took place in September, one at CNES in Toulouse and the other at Shanghai.

2014, a new start for SVOM

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