A new study lead by GSI scientists and international colleagues investigates black-hole formation in neutron star mergers. Computer simulations show that the properties of dense nuclear matter play a crucial role, which directly links the astrophysical merger event to heavy-ion collision experiments at GSI and FAIR. These properties will be studied more precisely at the future FAIR facility. With the award of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics the topic currently also receives a lot of attention.

Gaining a better understanding of the limiting factors for the existence of stable, superheavy elements is a decade-old quest of chemistry and physics. Superheavy elements, as are called the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 103, do not occur in nature and are produced artificially with particle accelerators. They vanish within seconds. A team of scientists from GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU),…

Nuclear clocks could make our time measurement even more accurate than atomic clocks. The key to this lies in thorium-229, an atomic nucleus whose lowest excited state has very low energy. A research team from the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics at the University of Heidelberg, TU Wien, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), and GSI Helmholtzzentrum in Darmstadt has now succeeded in measuring this low energy. Using an extremely accurate detector, it was…

High-precision measurements of the mass of the deuteron, the nucleus of heavy hydrogen, provide new insights into the reliability of fundamental quantities in atomic and nuclear physics. This is reported in the journal "Nature" by a collaboration led by the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics Heidelberg, Germany, and partners from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research Darmstadt and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz, Germany.

The high-performance data center of GSI and FAIR, the Green IT Cube, was awarded the “Blue Angel” as a label of special environmental friendliness. Currently, this makes it the only data center to receive the eco label of the German government. Thanks to a special cooling system, it is particularly energy efficient and conserves resources. The Green IT Cube is one of the most powerful scientific data centers in the world.

Another important stage in the FAIR mega project is starting. While the shell construction in the construction area north is progressing continuously, a first major package has now been awarded for the southern construction site. This marks the next decisive steps in the realization of the future accelerator center FAIR, currently being built at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt.

GSI/FAIR uses its research potential and unique infrastructure to contribute to the management of the current corona pandemic. In several areas at GSI/FAIR, scientists are working to provide new insights and technologies that may help to fight the corona virus SARS-CoV-2. To this aim, the accelerators and laboratories on the Darmstadt campus are also being used. The laboratory is operational, while strictly abiding to safety regulations.

The two GSI physicists Marco Durante and Gabriel Martínez-Pinedo have been honored with the prestigious advanced research grant of the European Union. The European Research Council (ERC) awarded them each an "ERC Advanced Grant". The renowned prize underlines the outstanding quality of scientific research at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the future accelerator center FAIR, which is being built there.

One of our priorities at GSI and FAIR has always been to provide the public with exciting insights into our research facilities, programs and results, and demonstrating the progress made on the construction of FAIR. However, the new situation created by the spread of the corona virus requires new approaches also here. Public guided tours on the campus and to the visitor platform at the construction site cannot be offered at present. Therefore, GSI and FAIR have arranged a digital offer, which…