Research

The Paris Observatory - PSL is a unique research establishment, not only in terms of its history, reputation and diversity of research fields, but also in terms of its ability to initiate innovative, multi-disciplinary research.
While it employs around a quarter of France’s total workforce in astronomy and astrophysics, a significant proportion of its staff work in other disciplines. This diversity of profiles and research themes creates an ecosystem that is unique in France, enabling the development of excellence in both fundamental and applied research, in emblematic fields as well as at the crossroads of disciplines.

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Emblematic strengths

Thanks to its expertise and the substantial resources devoted to these fields, Paris Observatory is recognized in France and internationally for its work on planetology and exoplanetary systems, gravitation and high-energy astrophysics, galaxy formation and evolution, as well as ground and space-based instrumentation, signal detection and processing, and the development of associated data processing pipelines.

In these fields, the thematic and methodological complementarity of our teams enables us to implement a continuum within the Observatory, combining theory with observation, experimentation and instrumentation.

This expertise and the associated technical resources make the Observatory a key player in the major questions and projects of the sciences of the Universe, in particular on the major instruments on the ground and in space: CTA, ELT, GAIA, SKA, Solar Orbiter, to name but a few. Observatoire de Paris designs and operates observatory instruments for these major projects, and continues to develop state-of-the-art observatory facilities at its Nançay site.

Unique expertise in cutting-edge fields

Observatoire de Paris - PSL also provides a framework for the development of research fields that are unique in France, exploiting technical resources or methodological approaches that do not exist elsewhere. These “nuggets” often spearhead interdisciplinary research.
These unique areas of expertise include:
● celestial mechanics and reference systems, with expertise unique in France covering the entire field,
● time-frequency metrology and atomic interferometry, with the establishment of the French legal time base,
● the interstellar medium, combining modeling and laboratory experiments,
● stellar physics, with stellar seismology and astrometry,
● in situ studies of heliospheric plasmas and Earth-Sun relations,
● multidisciplinary fields, such as the history of astronomical practices or land surfaces and atmospheres, at the interface of astronomy, physics and geosciences.
● technical skills, such as the development of Terahertz detectors for space applications, flight software sought after by CNES, and new real-time computing architectures for ground-based instruments and radio astronomy.

Thanks to this rare and sought-after expertise, the Observatory’s teams can take on key roles in astrophysics’ structuring projects, and within major international collaborations led by ESA, NASA and ESO.

Fields of innovation for tomorrow’s science

In addition to well-established themes, new emerging fields are being explored. These potentially ground-breaking fields benefit from the Observatory’s unique ecosystem, combining a diversity of profiles, resources and know-how. This makes it possible to establish new synergies, for example between cosmological simulations and the exploitation of large-scale observational surveys, or to foster the emergence of new technological sectors.

This ecosystem offers Observatory teams the opportunity to design and develop new, ever more innovative instruments for astrophysics. These include low-frequency radio detection chains for characterizing exoplanetary magnetospheres, UV spectropolarimeters for studying winds and magnetospheres in hot, massive stars, and inductance spectro-imagers for optics and the near infrared.

The Observatoire de Paris -PSL plays a structuring and driving role in national astronomy, thanks to its own identity, which is characterized not only by the great diversity of its activities, but also by well-established thematic and methodological specificities.

This identity is underpinned by a research policy implemented within the six departments and institutes of the Observatoire de Paris, the Nançay radio astronomy station and the transversal actions defined by the Scientific Council.

Based on a survey of all the teams and laboratories, the Scientific Council has highlighted the strengths, emerging trends and nuggets of this unique research establishment in France, and has updated its identity to meet the challenges of the years ahead.

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