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Warm, cold, just right? The analysis of seven strongly gravitationally lensed quasars gives new clues about the temperature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about a quarter of our universe. The results put a lower limit on the mass of a potential dark matter particle while not ruling out cold dark matter.

Taking the Temperature of Dark Matter

Magnetars are neutron stars endowed with the strongest magnetic fields observed in the Universe, but their origin remains controversial. In a study published in Science Advances, a team of scientists from CEA, Saclay, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris developed a new and unprecedentedly detailed computer model that can explain the genesis of these gigantic fields through the amplification of pre-existing weak fields when rapidly rotating neutron stars are born in collapsing massive stars. The work opens new avenues to understand the most powerful and most luminous explosions of such stars.

A new theory of magnetar formation

A new model of galaxy formation will help scientists to better understand the distribution of gas and stars within galaxies. Researchers from the MPA in Garching, along with collborators from Switzerland, China, the UK, and Iceland have come together to release L-GALAXIES 2020, the latest version of the L-GALAXIES model project, a computational simulation designed to study many millions of galaxies simultaneously, each self-consistently evolved over billions of years of cosmic time.

L-GALAXIES 2020: Modelling millions of galaxies across billions of years

Artificial intelligence expands into all areas of the daily life, including research. Neural networks learn to solve complex tasks by training them on the basis of enormous amounts of examples. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching have now succeeded in combining several networks, each one specializing in a different task, to jointly solve tasks using Bayesian logic in areas none was originally trained on. This enables the recycling of expensively trained networks and is an important step towards universally deductive artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence combined

By examining the Auriga suite, a large sample of simulated Milky Way galaxies formed in the full cosmological context, scientists at MPA have been able to place constraints on the history of the Milky Way's formation. By comparing these simulations to observations of the Milky Way — and specifically to how fast stars of different metallicities in the inner regions of the Galaxy move around its centre — they were able to exclude certain formation histories. In particular they found that our galaxy had to be quite isolated with the last major merger happening over 12 billion years ago and with a galaxy less than 10% of the mass of the Milky Way.

Our Milky Way – not a typical spiral galaxy

New Hubble Constant Measurement Strengthens Discrepancy in Universe's Expansion Rate

Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Yield Independent Measure of Universe's Expansion

Rather than trying to study special regions in large-volume simulations, scientists at MPA have used the IllustrisTNG model to create whole separate universes with a modified cosmology. Their study of these separate universes shows that when the baryon density (the density of ordinary matter) changes, the number of galaxies can increase or decrease depending on how this number is measured. Also, the large-scale distribution of matter is affected by the effects of baryons, with various measures reacting differently.

Galaxy formation in separate universes

News at MPA

Note due to corona: Contacting MPA

To contain the spread of corona virus infections, the MPA has enacted certain changes to protect its employees. Wherever possible, MPA staff will work from their home offices. For the time being, the MPA will not offer public events, and its staff will not undertake travel or attend conferences. Meetings will be held via video conferencing.
Therefore it might be difficult to reach some staff members by telephone, please use Email instead. Mail continues to be received. Please note, however, that there might be some delays in getting a response.

One sixth of the sky with the telescope SRG/eROSITA

February 04, 2020

A little more than a month has passed since the beginning of the regular all-sky survey of the SRG observatory, moving on a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. Since the start of the scan, the ART-XC and eROSITA telescopes have already covered more than 1/6 of the entire celestial sphere and demonstrated the excellent capabilities of SRG in mapping the X-ray sky. By mid-June 2020, the scientists will have the first map of the entire sky, and after four years, each part of the sky will be covered 8 times, increasing the sensitivity of the survey by a record 20-30 times compared to the ROSAT map.

Progress in understanding the brightest explosions in the Universe

January 24, 2020

Some unidentified features in one of the brightest stellar explosions ever witnessed, SN 2006gy, have now been explained by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. The spectral lines arise from neutral iron - very unusual for such a high-energy event - and imply that more than a third of a solar mass of this heavy element was created. The dominance of iron in the spectrum rules out several previously proposed scenarios for SN 2006gy and instead opened up the door for a new one.

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Taking the Temperature of Dark Matter

A new theory of magnetar formation

L-GALAXIES 2020: Modelling millions of galaxies across billions of years

Artificial intelligence combined

Our Milky Way – not a typical spiral galaxy

Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Yield Independent Measure of Universe's Expansion

Galaxy formation in separate universes

News at MPA

Note due to corona: Contacting MPA

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