Untitled - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble
Untitled - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble
Untitled - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble
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Permanent staff: 7. PhDs completed: 2; un<strong>de</strong>rway: 2 + 1 with FOST. Team lea<strong>de</strong>r: G.<br />
Pelletier (UJF Professor).<br />
• The second axis (High energies and astrophysical plasmas: the accretion-ejection phenomenon and its<br />
implications for astroparticle physics) is specific to Sherpas team. The team studies the accretion-ejection<br />
phenomenon, here in the context of compact X-ray binaries and AGNs (“two-fluid jets”), where gravitation<br />
(in addition to magnetic fields) plays a dominant role, and also fundamental research on accretion disk<br />
transport and jet stability, as well as cosmic-ray acceleration to ultra-high energies (UHE) by relativistic<br />
shock waves. The Sherpas team is actively involved in the HESS European collaboration, which operates<br />
an array of ˘ Cerenkov telescopes in Namibia with the capability to <strong>de</strong>tect very high-energy γ-rays (≥ 10 12<br />
eV).<br />
• The third axis (Instrumental research in the field of high angular resolution and high dynamic range<br />
for large telescopes), is specific to GRIL. Because of the current wavelength range, there are significant<br />
interactions with the FOST (young stars) and Sherpas (AGNs) teams, but nothing in principle prevents<br />
GRIL to get LAOG involved in mm and/or high-energy instrumentation at the initiative of Astromol or<br />
Sherpas (there are currently no such projects however.) Note that once an instrument reaches the actual<br />
building stage, it leaves GRIL and becomes a “project” of the technical group, hea<strong>de</strong>d by P. Kern. GRIL is<br />
also in charge of helping <strong>de</strong>ci<strong>de</strong> strategic orientations of LAOG for the long-term future, like contributing<br />
to ELTs (extremely large telescopes), interferometric <strong>de</strong>velopments in Antarctica at Dome C, or future<br />
space missions (e.g., Darwin, ESA, > 2015). (These questions will be expan<strong>de</strong>d below.)<br />
1.1.4 Stu<strong>de</strong>ntship at LAOG<br />
Stu<strong>de</strong>nts have always been a large component of LAOG personnel. On average, there are about 20 PhD being<br />
prepared in our lab (6 new stu<strong>de</strong>nts hired every year). The majority of these stu<strong>de</strong>nts get a research grant from<br />
the French Ministry of research, while other are paid by specific grants based on instrumental projects. Since<br />
the year 2001 (TBC), the LAOG also welcomes an increasing number of young researchers on post-doctoral<br />
positions. These positions are awar<strong>de</strong>d by the ministry of research, or the CNRS on the basis of a scientific<br />
project. They are also provi<strong>de</strong>d by the European networks we are more and more involved into. LAOG has<br />
<strong>de</strong>fined a number of procedures to associate its PhD stu<strong>de</strong>nts to the lab every day life:<br />
• two stu<strong>de</strong>nts are elected members of the LAOG advisory board<br />
• every year, we organize a “thesis workshop” during a full day where the PhD stu<strong>de</strong>nts can present their<br />
work before the rest of the lab.<br />
Table 1.1: Number of PhD stu<strong>de</strong>nts from 2003 to 2005 in LAOG<br />
Year 2003 2004 2005<br />
22 16 18<br />
1.1.5 Selected highlights and comparison with objectives of the previous report<br />
Given the large differences between the old and the new structures of LAOG, it is difficult to compare the<br />
prospective of the old teams, as presented in the previous prospective report, and the resulting “activity”<br />
part of the present report, without going into unnecessary <strong>de</strong>tails. The most important changes were due to<br />
movements of researchers leaving or joining LAOG, namely an increase in mm astronomy activities, and the<br />
arrival of a new expertise: X-rays, taken mainly as tracers of magnetic fields in young stars. Most of the other<br />
results have been obtained acording to plans, sometimes even faster (like the first image of an exoplanetary<br />
mass object.)<br />
Consequently, we prefer to summarize the main results obtained by the teams over the 2002-2005 period, as<br />
follows.<br />
25