StarAcc

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.

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.

Instabilities at the surface of magnetic white dwarfs.

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

Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe