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The Sun constantly emits a stream of charged particles, known as solar wind. Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, experiences solar winds and storms more than 10 times more powerful than those experienced by Earth, which is located 1 astronomical unit away. Even along its orbit, which is highly elliptical between a perihelion of 0.31 astronomical units from the Sun and an aphelion of 0.47, Mercury is subject to very different solar wind pressures...

Congratulations to Anatole Berger who successfully defended his PhD "On the use of moment methods for modeling low-temperature plasmas in the low and intermediate pressure regime" on December 2025. Summary : Low-temperature plasmas are used in many technological applications, from microelectronics manufacturing to electric space propulsion. They exhibit strong nonequilibrium features that cannot be described by classical fluid models, and require...

Hall-effect thrusters are used in satellites for orbit transfer and station-keeping. The LPP (Laboratory of Plasma Physics) has been conducting research in this field for over ten years and has recently focused on the instabilities observed at the plasma-wall interface in these thrusters. Plasma-wall interactions are complex and often determine the overall operating regime of a plasma device. The region connecting the plasma to the wall, where the...