An international collaboration has succeeded in reproducing, in the laboratory, the extreme physical phenomena observed in two-star systems described as "magnetic cataclysmic variables". In these systems, a "white dwarf", an extremely dense star, gravitates matter from a second nearby star, which then emits highly energetic radiation when it reaches the surface of the dense star. To reproduce these phenomena in the laboratory, the researchers used the Orion power laser based in the UK or which allowed them to spray a millimetre target over a very short time (one billionth of a second) to create phenomena equivalent to those occurring at the poles of a white dwarf. The collaboration, which mobilized the expertise of the CEA, the École Polytechnique, the CNRS, the Observatoire de Paris, the Université Paris Diderot and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, published these results in Nature Communications on Monday 13 June.
Click here to read the press release in French on the CEA website
