
Hugo Duminil-Copin participates in University Paris-Saclay’s astrophysics summer school at the Haute-Provence Observatory
From July 15 to 20, 2024, IHES Permanent Professor Hugo Duminil-Copin, recipient of the 2022 Fields Medal, visited the Haute-Provence Observatory (OHP) in Saint-Michel-l’Observatoire to participate in the annual astrophysics summer school of University Paris-Saclay.
This summer school, organized by Martine Chane-Yook, Hervé Dole, and Cateline Lantz from Université Paris-Saclay’s Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), aims to introduce undergraduate and first-year master’s students in physics to modern methods of astrophysical data collection and analysis. During the school, students use the various advanced instruments and facilities of the Observatory, including a 1.2m and a 0.8m telescope for imaging and photometry, as well as astronomical refractors, cameras, and infrared spectrometers.

OHP is a prominent site for French and European astronomy. The large telescope and the “Elodie” spectrograph notably enabled the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995 by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who were awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery in 2019 and are colleagues of Hugo Duminil-Copin at the University of Geneva. “I have always been passionate about astrophysics, and I still remember the Nobel Prize announcement for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b five years ago. It is exciting to see the instruments that led to its discovery in real life. The observations and interactions with the students have taught me a lot about how physicists explore our universe,” says Hugo Duminil-Copin.
For the students, work mainly takes place at night, with observations in small groups from 8:30 PM to 5:00 AM. With the collected data, they contribute to a joint project using the 1.2m telescope, aiming to cover a large area of the sky in multi-color imaging, similar to the major astrophysical survey projects such as EUCLID conducted from space or the ground in recent years.
Unlike the OHP telescopes, Euclid is a satellite telescope designed to map the extragalactic sky. Hervé Dole, professor in physics at IAS, explains, “For now, we only know about a tiny part of our universe, but Euclid will allow us to collect data on billions of galaxies!” Thanks to the images and data collected by Euclid, scientists hope to learn more about the mysterious dark matter that makes up more than 25% of our universe. On this matter, and as part of the OHP’s Astro Summer lecture series, Hervé Dole and Hugo Duminil-Copin gave a joint public lecture on Wednesday, July 17, entitled “EUCLID and the Dark Side of the Universe”.

Throughout the week, students were able to observe various objects of interest to astrophysicists, including trans-Neptunian objects, asteroids, comets, a quasar (the bright nucleus of a distant galaxy), several exoplanets, nebulae, as well as star clusters and galaxies.
In addition to the scientific work accomplished, the summer school provided an excellent opportunity for students to informally discuss their backgrounds, experiences in academia, and future career possibilities.
