The PASIPHAE ERC project fully supported the first, most challenging, technique-development phase and first data-taking phase of this pioneering experiment.
During the PASIPHAE ERC project, we demonstrated for the first time in real data from ESA's Planck microwave mission the importance of the role that the complexity of the Galactic "veil" plays in contaminating our microwave view of the early Universe. We developed new, robust statistical techniques to go from polarimetric observations of starlight to tomographic measurements of the local magnetic fields (direction and strength) in intervening interstellar clouds.
In anticipation of the new polarimeters, we developed multiple new calibration techniques that will allow us to reach unprecedented levels of accuracy in polarimetric observations. These calibration techniques will be invaluable not only for PASIPHAE, but for all experiments using optical polarimetry, in astrophysics and beyond.
We took first data, mapping a region of the sky extending over more than 15 times the area of the full moon, and created the first 3-dimensional map of the Galactic magnetic field on such an extended scale. We made the software that takes us from polarimetric measurements to 3D maps, which we developed, freely available to the entire scientific community (see
https://pasiphae.science/software(si apre in una nuova finestra)).
We developed new, high-accuracy techniques for measuring the magnetic field of our Milky Way Galaxy once polarimetric data have been acquired. These techniques have been widely recognized by the astrophysics community, earned awards for the young researchers that spearheaded their development, and have ushered in a new era of precision Galactic magnetometry.
Almost 100 publications in high-impact refereed journals were produced, with results from the PASIPAHE ERC project.
Finally, we developed a multi-faceted outreach program to involve the general public in this exciting project and in modern cosmology. This included the development of visualization software that allows the user to fly through our mapped stars, the intervening clouds, and their magnetic fields, both on a computer screen and in a virtual-reality environment (see
https://pasiphae.science/visualization(si apre in una nuova finestra) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_6J1zhmPI ). And it also included a diverse set of outreach activities, ranging from talks for the general public, to virtual-reality fly-through demos, to open nights at the Skinakas Observatory, to articles in the popular press, to free astrophysics and cosmology classes for schoolchildren and all interested citizens, to youtube and instagram content both on our own Institute of Astrophysics channel as well as on popular science channels, to events combining science and art (a musical retelling of our modern story of cosmogony in the style of ancient myths and epic troubadours) in collaboration with the local artist community of the Greek mountains.
