I'm a physicist involved in High Energy Astrophysics at the LLR Ecole Polytechnique, located in the suburbs of Paris.
My work is mainly related to the understanding of highly energetic phenomenon in the Universe through observations of their electromagnetic radiation by space-borne X/gamma-ray telescopes such as RXTE and soon GLAST, and Very High Energy gamma-ray detectors such as H.E.S.S. both of which I am a collaborative member.
Very high energy radiation in the form of gamma-rays comes from a wide variety of sources located either nearby (the Sun), in our Galaxy (supernova remnants, pulsars, black hole systems) or even further away (quasars, gamma ray bursts). In this wilderness I am especially interested in systems where radiation seems to come from an externally powered compact object such as X-ray binaries or Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).
The most plausible origin for this radiation is through interactions of particles in-situ, which must hence have a similar very high kinetic energy. This raises a few very interesting questions such as
- How are these particles accelerated up to those high energies, and what are they?
- What is the role of the central object in this mechanism?
- Why does their luminosity vary on such fast timescales?
- Are there connections between the mechanisms at play in small and supermassive black holes?
More accurate observations, with instruments of increasing sensibility and resolution, are giving a clearer view and unravel more complex behaviours of these astrophysical sources. See, e.g., our recent results from 2007 that were published in Nature's News & Views
Analyzing data from both particle- and astrophysics instruments, I have written some code that might be useful for other physicists in the field.
Our particle astrophysics group has sometimes opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. We offer a wide variety of theoretical and experimental topics.
