Mar 17, 2023
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.
Dec 15, 2021
New research shows that the spiral structure of the Milky Way is more clumpy then previously thought
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. If we could travel out of it we would probably observe a flat disk with spiral arms connected to its central core. Stuck inside the Milky Way, with no bird's eye view and limited precise distance measurement to interstellar clouds, the exact shape of the Galaxy spiral pattern is difficult to assess and remains not well known.
Mar 13, 2020
The highest magnetic fileds of the Universe reproduced by numerical simulations
Magnetars are neutron stars endowed with the strongest magnetic fields observed in the Universe, but their origin remains controversial.
Apr 19, 2018
The mass distribution of the different stars formed from a collapsing gas cloud has just been successfully reproduced by two researchers from the Astrophysics Department/AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu. The collapse of a gas cloud of 1000 solar mass has been reconstructed thanks to numerical simulations, varying the density and the influence of turbulence.
Apr 03, 2018
Detection by ALMA of polarized dust emission in the protostar B335
An international team led by the Department of Astrophysics/AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu has just shown for the first time that the magnetic field plays a fundamental role in the collapse of proto-stars. Based on observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers measured the polarization of dust in the B335 protostar. This polarization, emission of light in a preferred direction, results from the alignment of the dust grains under the influence of the magnetic field.
Feb 08, 2018
A theoretical breakthrough paves the way for anticipation of solar storms
A single phenomenon could control all solar flares. This is what researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, CEA-Irfu and Inria have just proposed in an article in the front page of the journal Nature on February 8, 2018. They highlighted the presence of a reinforced "cage" in which a "magnetic cord" develops, an entanglement of twisted magnetic lines of force at the origin of the solar flares.
Mar 20, 2017
Key role of the gaseous phase underlined by numerical simulations and analytical approach
The proto-clusters, which are the birth sites of stars, are formed non-uniformly inside molecular clouds of the interstellar medium. Studying the steps leading to the collapse of pre-stellar dense cores is essential to understanding the star formation. Using both numerical simulations carried out on massively parallel computers and an analytical approach, two researchers from the Astrophysics Department / AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu, Y.-N. Lee and P.
Mar 13, 2017
Mysterious alignment of the rotation axis of stars in two clusters
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.
Jul 06, 2016
Instabilities and shocks disrupt the atmosphere of exoplanets
In collaboration with the Observatory of Bordeaux and the University of Bern in Switzerland, a researcher of the Astrophysics Departement-Laboratory AIM at CEA-IRFU has demonstrated the existence of significant instabilities in supersonic winds at the surface of giant planets very close to their star, described as "hot Jupiters".
Jun 13, 2016
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 10, 2015
Why the Sun's atmosphere is much hotter than its surface?
How does the temperature of the Sun's atmosphere can reach up to a million degrees, while that of the surface of the star is about 6000 ° C? By simulating the evolution of part of the interior and exterior of the Sun, researchers from Center for Theoretical Physics (CNRS / Ecole Polytechnique) and Astrophysical Department-AIM Laboratory (CNRS / CEA / Université Paris Diderot) identified the mechanisms bringing energy capable of heating the solar atmosphere.
Oct 19, 2014
First successes in forecasting solar flares
Researchers at the Center for Theoretical Physics (CNRS / Ecole Polytechnique) and Astrophysics Department-Laboratory AIM (CNRS / CEA / Université Paris Diderot) have identified a key phenomenon in the emergence of solar flares. Using satellite data and numerical modeling, the researchers were able to follow the evolution of the solar magnetic field in a specific area of the Sun that gave rise to a flare.
