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
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

The first consistent study of galaxy mergers in real and simulated universes
For the first time, merging pairs of galaxies have been found using an identical method in both simulations and observations of the real universe, using artificial intelligence. The co-author of the pioneering work is Dr. William Pearson from the Astrophysics Department of the Fundamental Research Department of NCBJ.

Virgo i LIGO odkrywają nową i niezwykłą populację czarnych dziur
Virgo i LIGO ogłosiły wykrycie fal grawitacyjnych z układu dwóch czarnych dziur, które połączyły się tworząc czarną dziurę o masie około 142 mas Słońca. Utworzony obiekt znajduje się w zakresie mas, w którym nigdy wcześniej nie obserwowaliśmy czarnych dziur: ani za pomocą fal grawitacyjnych, ani obserwacji elektromagnetycznych. W badaniach biorą udział naukowcy z NCBJ.

GW190814 - fale grawitacyjne pochodzące ze zlania się nietypowego układu podwójnego
Detektory LIGO-Virgo zarejestrowały fale grawitacyjne ze zlania się nietypowego układu podwójnego zawierającego czarną dziurę i inny zwarty, dziewięciokrotnie lżejszy obiekt, który może być albo najlżejszą wykrytą czarną dziurą albo najcięższą zaobserwowaną gwiazdą neutronową. Tak duża asymetria masy układu pozwala na nowe, precyzyjne testy ogólnej teorii względności. W badaniach biorą udział Polacy, w tym trzech naukowców z NCBJ.

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.

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).