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08/03/2021

Interview with Giulia Zanderighi

Top quark: Searching for traces at the LHC with unprecedented precision

Giulia Zanderighi, director of the department "Novel computational techniques in particle physics" (Photo: A. Griesch/MPP)

The top quark is the heaviest of all elementary particles found in nature. The mass of this point-like particle corresponds to that of the comparatively of the much larger gold atom. One of the production sites for top quarks is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. When protons collide, top…

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06/16/2021

Saturday, June 26, 2021: Open day at the Max Planck Institute for Physics

Visitors meet elementary particles – online

On June 26, the Max Planck Institute for Physics will be hosting another open day. The Institute is virtually opening its doors and offering the general public the opportunity to experience experiments and lectures live, to visit laboratories and workshops online, and to discuss their research with…

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04/23/2021

AWAKE brings proton bunches into sync

Proton bunches in sync: A train of short proton bunches travels through the plasma field, forming a wave on which electrons can be accelerated. (Image: AWAKE)

The future of particle acceleration has begun. AWAKE is a promising concept for a completely new method with which particles can be accelerated even over short distances. The basis for this is a plasma wave that accelerates electrons and thus brings them to high energies. A team led by the Max…

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04/14/2021

Many eyes see more: Black hole under observation

Composite image showing how the M87 system looked, across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, during the Event Horizon Telescope's April 2017 campaign to take the iconic first image of a black hole. Requiring 19 different facilities on the Earth and in space, this image reveals the enormous scales spanned by the black hole and its jet, launched just outside the event horizon and spanning the entire galaxy.

Messier M87 is 55 million light years away from Earth. As is the case for probably all galaxies, there is a huge black hole in its center. In 2017, a host of telescopes observed the object over the entire energy spectrum. The spectacular result of this extensive observation campaign was the famous…

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03/31/2021

Industrial plastic optimizes background detection in LEGEND

Germanium detector mounted on a PEN holder: The transparent plate also carries the electronic components for signal detection. (Photo: M. Willers/MPP)

The LEGEND 200 experiment is set to search for extremely rare neutrinoless double beta decay. Finding it could answer a central physics question: is the neutrino its own antiparticle? To detect the decay, scientists use highly sensitive Germanium detectors. However, in order to identify “real”…

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03/25/2021

Search for sterile neutrinos: It's all about a bend in the curve

The spectrometer of the KATRIN experiment, set to measure the neutrino mass. (Photo: M. Zacher/KIT)

There are many questions surrounding the elementary particle neutrino, in particular regarding its mass. Physicists are also interested in whether besides the “classic” neutrinos there are variants such as the so-called sterile neutrinos. The KATRIN experiment has now succeeded in strongly narrowing…

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03/18/2021

ATLAS muon chambers in series production

Team work in the clean room: MPP employees are mounting an optical measuring system onto the drift tube layers. It monitors potential deformations due to the self-weight of the muon chamber. The signal wires in the drift tubes are positioned with an accuracy of 1 hundreth of a millimeter. (Photo B. Wankerl/MPP)

Despite the corona pandemic, the production of next-generation ATLAS muon chambers at the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is proceeding as planned. Due to the current contact restrictions, the technicians are only permitted to work in shifts that vary on a daily basis. Nevertheless, the…

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03/09/2021

How mathematical detective work opens up new paths in particle physics

Cluster algebras are interconnected sets of formulas. They were developed from “toy models”, and used for a genuine quantum field theory for the first time. (Graphic: Carolin Leyck)

Theoretical particle physicists sometimes compare Feynman integrals to “wild beasts”. Three physicists have now succeeded in partially taming these wild beasts with the help of mathematics. Their scientific achievement should make theoretical calculations of particle collisions considerably easier.

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03/04/2021

Belle II: Picking the best data cherries with neural networks

The Belle II detector records about 5,000 collision events per second. However, only a fraction of these are of interest for physical questions. In order to distinguish the real signals from unusable data, the experiment uses “triggers”. Since the end of February, Belle II has been working with an…

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02/15/2021

MPP launches the Hanrieder Research Fellowship

Photo: M. Kuhlmann/MPP

The Max Planck Institute for Physics, together with the Hanrieder Research Foundation for Excellence, is initiating a new funding program. The Hanrieder Research Fellowship aims to support junior physicists from countries in Latin America in a targeted way. Accordingly, the program is aimed at…

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