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Actualités liées au Département de Physique

Students in “Laboratory Research Project” published in Optics Letters
Akira Barros (Bachelor) and Aditya Swaminathan (Bachelor) participated in February-June 2024 in a research project at the Physics Department, Ecole Polytechnique - « Projet de Recherche en Laboratoire » - devoted to magneto-plasmonics in metal-ferromagnet nanostructures, together with Pavel Varlamov (PhD-thesis at Ecole Polytechnique, defended in November 2024), and under the direction of Vasily Temnov (LSI, Ecole Polytechnique).
This work resulted in the prediction of the new resonance in the (magneto-)plasmonic Otto configuration, a study published in a prestigious journal Optics Letters:
The experimental part of this work was co-funded though the Physics Department at Ecole Polytechnique.
(fr) Deux scientifiques de l'X honorés par la médaille de cristal du CNRS
Aline Vernier (LOA) et Loïc Gouarin (CMAP) vont recevoir la médaille de cristal du CNRS 2024. Elle récompense des femmes et des hommes, personnels d’appui à la recherche, qui font preuve de créativité, de maîtrise technique et de sens de l’innovation.
Pour plus d'informations, cliquez ici.
A new magnetospheric landscape revealed by BepiColombo/Mio, published in Nature Communications Physics!
In June 2023, the Euro-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo completed its third flyby of Mercury, passing within 235 km of the surface. A research team, led by Lina Hadid, a researcher at the Plasma Physics Laboratory, analyzed the data collected by the ion mass spectrometer (MSA, PI: Lina Hadid, France) and other ion (MIA) and electron (MEA) analyzers, revealing major discoveries about Mercury's magnetosphere.
For the first time, the presence of trapped energetic protons was observed near the planet at near equatorial latitudes, suggesting the presence of a ring current around Mercury (similar to the Earth's environment). Energetic electrons were also detected, along with cold planetary ions (O+ and Na+).
These observations made during cruise phase, open new perspectives on the dynamics of the planetary ions within the magnetosphere of Mercury and provide a tantalizing glimpse of the new discoveries that are expected from the Mercury Plasmas Particle Experiment instruments after orbit insertion in November 2026.
More information can be found in the article published in Nature Communications Physics:
Mercury’s plasma environment after BepiColombo’s third flyby
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