Federal Ministry of Education and Research to fund fundamental research on detectors with almost three million euros

Experiments to investigate the properties of unknown atomic nuclei

20.07.2021

This news is based on a press release of the University of Cologne

Within the framework of the project funding of the ErUM-Pro action plan of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the University of Cologne will receive a total of 2.8 million euros for the next three years. This funding will be used to support the projects of Professor Dr. Jan Jolie, Professor Dr. Peter Reiter and Professor Dr. Andreas Zilges, which address the investigation of the smallest structures of matter. The focus is on the development, setup and execution of experiments at the international research facility FAIR, which is currently under construction at GSI, and the research facility ISOLDE at the research center CERN near Geneva.

The aim of the investigations is the properties of short-lived, previously unknown atomic nuclei, which are made available for the experiments at the accelerators in Darmstadt and in Geneva. In this context, the Cologne groups contribute significantly to the instrumentation of future experiments with detectors for γ-spectroscopy, for the detection of neutrons, and for beam particles. The experiments with stable beams performed at the accelerator facility of the University of Cologne will thus be extended in an ideal way.

The Cologne collaboration with the European research facility ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure — Nuclear Physics) will also be strengthened. ELI-NP is being built near Bucharest, Romania. The unique combination of laser beams and electron beams from particle accelerators will enable a future light source characterized by extremely high intensities and extremely high energies.

99.9% of the visible matter around us consists of atomic nuclei. These consist of protons and neutrons, which interact with each other through the strong as well as the electromagnetic and the weak force. Despite intensive experimental and theoretical efforts, the strong interaction in nuclei is still not well understood. Atomic nuclei also play a central role in energy production and other processes in stars. This means that atomic nuclei have an important connecting role between the very smallest systems and the very largest systems (stars, galaxies, universe). Because of this unique position of the many-particle system atomic nucleus, it is of fundamental importance to understand the structure of nuclei and the interactions of nucleons in nuclei.

With the ErUM-Pro action plan, the BMBF promotes networking between universities, research infrastructures and society in order to further develop research infrastructures and enrich research there. The action plan is part of the BMBF framework program ErUM - Exploring Universe and Matter. (CP)

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