Search Publications
A statistical primer on classical period-finding techniques in astronomy
Shaban, Ahmed; Giertych, Naomi; Haravu, Pragya +1 more
The aim of our paper is to investigate the properties of the classical phase-dispersion minimization (PDM), analysis of variance (AOV), string-length (SL), and Lomb-Scargle (LS) power statistics from a statistician's perspective. We confirm that when the data are perturbations of a constant function, i.e. under the null hypothesis of no period in …
MICROSCOPE's view at gravitation
Bergé, Joel
The weak equivalence principle (WEP) is the cornerstone of general relativity (GR). Testing it is thus a natural way to confront GR to experiments, which has been pursued for four centuries with increasing precision. MICROSCOPE is a space mission designed to test the WEP with a precision of 1 in 1015 parts, two orders of magnitude bette…
Dark matter local density determination: recent observations and future prospects
Widmark, A.; de Salas, Pablo F.
This report summarises progress made in estimating the local density of dark matter (ρDM,⊙), a quantity that is especially important for dark matter direct detection experiments. We outline and compare the most common methods to estimate ρDM,⊙ and the results from recent studies, including those that have benefited from the o…
Nuclear astrophysics lessons from INTEGRAL
Diehl, Roland
Measurements of high-energy photons from cosmic sources of nuclear radiation through ESA's INTEGRAL mission have advanced our knowledge: new data with high spectral resolution showed that characteristic gamma-ray lines from radioactive decays occur throughout the Galaxy in its interstellar medium. Although the number of detected sources and often …
Solar neutrinos, helioseismology and the solar internal dynamics
Turck-Chièze, Sylvaine; Couvidat, Sébastien
Neutrinos are fundamental particles ubiquitous in the Universe and whose properties remain elusive despite more than 50 years of intense research activity. This review illustrates the importance of solar neutrinos in astrophysics, nuclear physics and particle physics. After a description of the historical context, we remind the reader of the notic…
Progress in planetary lightning
Russell, C. T.; Borucki, W. J.; Bar-Nun, A. +1 more
We review the progress in the last decade in the field of planetary lightning. We provide background covering terrestrial lightning and newly discovered associated phenomena such as sprites. We concentrate on the theory and observations regarding lightning at Jupiter, especially the discoveries made by the Galileo orbiter and entry probe. Recent o…
The new astrometry
Kovalevsky, J.
First, the main objectives of astrometry are presented and the most important features or phenomena that intervene in the measurement of positions of celestial objects are shortly described. Then, the two classical astrometric techniques that are still very much used, especially since the invention of CCDs, transit instrument and astrophotography,…