Dr Chamel Nicolas

email: nchamel AT ulb.ac.be
phone number: +00 32 2 650 35 72

address:
Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Université Libre de Bruxelles
CP 226
Boulevard du Triomphe
B-1050 Brussels (Belgium)

office:
Campus de la Plaine, Building NO,  4th floor, office 2.N4.202

Current positions

Member of the Alumni College of the Royal Academy of Belgium,

Member of the International Astronomical Union.

Research interests

• Nuclear energy density functional theory and astrophysical applications
• Equation of state of dense matter in extreme astrophysical environments like white dwarfs, supernova cores, and neutron stars
• Crystallography of dense multicomponent Coulomb plasmas
• Deep crustal heating in accreted neutron stars
• Role of high magnetic fields on white dwarfs and neutron stars
• Application of the band theory of solids to free neutrons in neutron-star crusts
• Relativistic and non-relativistic hydrodynamics of superfluid mixtures
• Superfluidity and superconductivity in neutron stars: microscopic description and astrophysical signatures (e.g. pulsar glitches)

Online resources

Unified equations of state of catalysed matter for application to nonaccreting and unmagnetised cold neutron stars:

• tables
• analytical representations

Scientific publications

Some reviews:

Entrainment in Superfluid Neutron Star Crusts: Hydrodynamic Description and Microscopic Origin, J. Low. Temp. Phys. 189, 328 (2017) - special issue "Pairing and Condensation in Fermionic Systems", Guest Editor: Eckhard Krotscheck

Superfluidity and Superconductivity in Neutron Stars, J. Astrophys. Astr. 38, 43 (2017) - special issue in honor of Prof. Srinivasan

Brussels-Montreal Nuclear Energy Density Functionals, from Atomic Masses to Neutron Stars , Acta Phys. Pol. B 46, 349 (2015)

On the Maximum Mass of Neutron Stars, Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 22, 1330018 (2013)

Chasing Neutron Stars, Histoire de la recherche contemporaine, Tome I-N2, 160 (2012).

Physics of Neutron Star crusts, Living Rev. Relativity 11, 10 (2008)

Selected scientific presentations

• "Recent Developments in the Modelling of Neutron-Star Crusts" pdf given at the working group meeting of the COST NewCompStar action, Catania, Sicily, 7-9 November 2017.
• "Crystallography of Neutron-Star Crusts" pdf given at the Annual NewCompStar Conference 2017, Warsaw, Poland, 23-31 March 2017.
• "Superfluidity in Neutron Star Crusts" pdf given at the workshop Superfluidity and Pairing Phenomena: from Cold Atomic Gases to Neutron Stars, ECT*, Trento, Italy, 20-24 March 2017
• "Structure and Equation of State of Neutron-Star Crusts" pdf given at the conference Compact Stars and Gravitational Waves, Kyoto, Japan, 31 October-4 November 2016.
• "Pairing in Neutron-Star Crusts within the Nuclear Energy Density Functional Theory" pdf given at the workshop Physics at the Falls: Pairing Phenomena from Neutron Stars to Cold Gases, Buffalo, USA, 23-25 March 2016.
• "Electron captures and neutron emissions in magnetic white dwarfs and magnetars" pdf given at the 34th Rila Workshop on Nuclear Theory, Bulgaria, 21-27 June 2015.
• "Properties of Neutron Star Crusts with Accurately Calibrated Nuclear Energy Density Functionals" pdf given at the Annual NewCompStar Conference 2015, Budapest, Hungary, 15-19 June 2015.
• "Unified Equations of State for Neutron Stars and Magnetars" pdf given at the 16th RAGtime workshop, Prague, Czech Republic, 15-19 October 2014.
• "Recent Developments in the Modelling of Neutron-Star Crusts" pdf video given at the INT Workshop: Binary Neutron Star Coalescence as a Fundamental Physics Laboratory, Institute of Nuclear Theory, Seattle, Washington, USA, 14-18 July 2014
• "Vela Pulsar Glitches and Nuclear Superfluidity" pdf given at the conference The Structure and Signals of Neutron Stars, from Birth to Death, Florence, Italy, 24-28 March 2014.
• "Skyrme nuclear energy density functionals from atomic nuclei to neutron stars" pdf given at KITPC workshop: From Nucleon Structure to Nuclear Structure and Compact Astrophysical objects, Beijing, China, 16-30 June 2012.
• "Nuclear energy density functionals for astrophysics: from BSk16 to BSk21" pdf given at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics Long-term Workshop: Dynamics and Correlations in Exotic Nuclei, Kyoto, Japan, 16-28 September 2011.
• "Neutron-star matter with the energy density functional theory" pdf given at the Gordon Research Conference, New London, New Hampshire, USA, 12-17 June 2011.
• "Superfluidity in neutron star crusts" pdf video given at the INT Program: Fermions from Cold Atoms to Neutron Stars: Benchmarking the Many-Body Problem, Institute of Nuclear Theory, Seattle, Washington, USA, 14 March-20 May 2011
• "Generalized equation of state for superfluid neutron stars" pdf given at the CoCoNuT Meeting 2010, Valencia, Spain, 15-17 September 2010.
• "A historical perspective on the discovery of neutron stars" pdf given at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Orsay, France, 28 June 2010.
• "Superfluid models of neutron stars" pdf given at the workshop on the Complex Physics of Compact Stars, in Ladek Zdroj, Poland, 24-29 February 2008.
• "Neutron star crusts beyond the Wigner-Seitz approximation" pdf given at the International Symposium on Exotic States of Nuclear Matter, Catania, Italy, 11-15 June 2007.

Selected lectures given at scientific schools

• "Superfluidity and Superconductivity in Compact Stars" given at the NewCompStar School 2015, Bucharest, Romania, 20-25 September 2015.

  Part 1: Superfluidity and superconductivity in the laboratory pdf

  Part 2: Superfluidity and superconductivity in neutron stars pdf

• "General introduction to neutron stars" pdf given at the 7th Russbach School on Nuclear Astrophysics, Austria, 15-19 March 2010.
• "Neutron star crust matter" pdf given at the Helmholtz International Summer School on Nuclear theory and Astrophysical Applications, Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Dubna, Russia, 26 July-4 August 2004.

Teaching

Outreach

Public lectures in Astrophysics at Université Libre de Bruxelles