Our Research

The fourth division (BP4) of The Fundamental Research Department (Departament Badań Podstawowych) deals with research in astrophysics and astronomy, mainly their observational aspects. The BP4 division is located in Warsaw at 7 Pasteura street.

The research conducted at the Astrophysics Laboratory includes:

  • Cosmology: CMB, large structures of the Universe, dark matter, non-standard cosmology and gravitational lensing
  • Gravitational waves: Multi-messenger astronomy, new tools for cosmology
  • Physics of galaxies: Formation and evolution of galaxies, AGN, quasars and gamma-ray burst
  • Interstellar medium: Star formation, neutron stars and white dwarfs
Check our Research Fields page for more information.


The BP4 division is also involved in several international projects. Check our Scientific Projects page for more information.

 

Seminars

Upcoming seminars for all of NCBJ can be found here.

The seminar archive for NCBJ can be found here.

 

Latest News

Scroll down for the latest news about the research done by our division or click here.

Telescope Success

JWST

Darko Donevski and Giuliano Lorenzon from the Astrophysics Department BP4 - National Centre for Nuclear Research have been awarded, as co-investigators, 13 hours of time on the largest space instrument - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). They participated in the highly competitive Cycle 4 JWST proposal competition, which received a total of 2377 submissions. The project, led by Prof. A. Man (UBC Vancouver), aims to obtain the deepest-ever mid-infrared spectroscopy of a brightest cluster galaxy at z = 0.4. Darko and Giuliano will contribute to interpreting the interplay between warm and cold dust emission in this exceptional system, which harbours one of the most extended reservoirs of dust and gas observed to date.

Grant Success

NAWA Bekker

Congratulations to Margherita Grespan, a PhD candidate from the Astrophysics Department, who has been awarded the Bekker NAWA Fellowship! Over the next two years, she will join Oxford University’s Department of Physics to conduct research on anomaly detection in astronomical surveys, leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, including active learning. Her work will focus on uncovering rare phenomena, such as strong gravitational lenses, within the vast datasets produced by new-generation telescopes such as Euclid and Vera C. Rubin.

Also congratulations to Dr. Darko Donevski, who also received a Bekker NAWA Fellowship. Over the next 18 months, Dr. Darko Donevski will be conducting visiting research with the Astrophysics Group at SISSA (Trieste, Italy). He will lead a project exploring dust re-formation in galaxies that undergo strong outflows of gas. The project will combine theoretical approaches with cutting-edge data from the James Webb and Euclid space telescopes, as well as data from large ground-based observatories such as JCMT, ALMA and NOEMA, where Dr. Darko Donevski serves as PI or co-PI.

NCN OPUS

Congratulations to Kasia Małek, who received the OPUS 27 grant! The project is of course focused on dust: "DUSTiny: dust influence on galaxy properties in new generation surveys." (CLICK HERE for more info) Soon, we will open the call for a postdoc and a PhD; stay tuned!

Conference Participation

BP4 participate in may national and intersectional conferences. We share our cutting edge research and enthusiasm with other astronomers across the world. Below are pictures from our trips across the globe over the last year or so.

Latest News

Sześć habilitacji w pół roku. Tak trzymać!

Tolga Altinoluk, Michał Bluj, Katarzyna Małek, Jacek Rzadkiewicz, Jakub Wagner i Paweł Ziń to sześcioro nowych doktorów habilitowanych w NCBJ, którzy stopień doktora habilitowanego uzyskali w pierwszej połowie 2020 roku. Pracują oni w Departamencie Badań Podstawowych i w Departamencie Aparatury i Technik Jądrowych.

POLAR-2 will fly into space

A list of experiments, which will be placed on board the Chinese space station, as a part of cooperation between China and ONZ, has been announced on 12th of June in Vienna. Among the nine experiments accepted for execution there is the POLAR-2: Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimetry on the China Space Station. The project has been prepared by a consortium with participation of NCBJ.

logo NCN

NCN: Over 6 million PLN grants for scientists from Department of Fundamental Research

Results of the most recent competitions from National Science Centre MAESTRO, HARMONIA and SONATA BIS. HARMONIA grant will be given to Professor Agnieszka Pollo for project VIPERS and furthermore… SONATA BIS grants will be given to Professor Justyna Łagoda (Precise measurement of neutrino oscillations… T2K), Dr Katarzyna Małek (ASTROdust project…) and Dr Przemysław Małkiewicz (for research on quantum origin of cosmic expansion and primordial structures).

Wizja artystyczna zderzenia generującego fale grawitacyjne (grafika: NCBJ)

Detection of four additional gravity wave signals

Analysis of data from Advanced LIGO detectors revealed four new sources of gravitational waves. The signal GW170729 is connected to the most massive and distant source that was observed so far. Another one, GW170818, was discovered thanks to global network of three LIGO-Virgo detectors. It corresponds to the binary system located around 2,5 bilion light years from Earth.

Entrepreneurs can rest peacefully thanks to IT

A team of Polish researchers won in the first round of remote-access international competition Global Legal Hackathon 2018, which promotes innovative digital solutions in the area of law and legislation. The solution presented by dr Adam Zadrożny (NCBJ) and associates is based on blockchain technology and is meant to help the taxpayers document, that their business partner was a VAT taxpayer during the transaction.

SONATA BIS, SONATA and four times HARMONY

In the latest edition of the National Science Center’s grant competitions, six scientists from the NCBJ have been successful. The most valuable achievement is in the SONATA BIS 7 competition. Dr Kamila Kowalska from the Theoretical Physics Division will receive almost 2.5 million PLN for her research on „Extensions of Standard Model with vector-like fermions.”