Planetology

Understanding the internal structure of planets is crucial to explain the origin and evolution of planetary systems, several phenomena observable on their surface (volcanism, existence of magnetic field, dynamics of the atmosphere, etc...) or to better comprehend the various exoplanets that are more and more often discovered.
As in situ experimental data are generally inaccessible, the first challenge is to build reliable models of planetary interiors.
This task requires to obtain accurate data on the behavior of materials at the extreme thermodynamic conditions of planetary cores (pressures of several million atmospheres and temperatures of several thousand degrees).

For more than ten years, the PHYHDEL team in LULI has thus developed experimental schemes to generate these conditions using large lasers such as LULI2000 and to study their properties, obtaining several advances in the field.

Contacts :

alessandra.ravasio[at]polytechnique.edu
alessandra.benuzzi-mounaix[at]polytechnique.edu