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Press Archive 2016
Today, our division director Prof. Klaus Blaum received the Gothenburg Lise Meitner Prize 2016
"for the development of innovative techniques for high-precision measurements of stored radioactive ions"
(see also our press release of April 29, 2016). The Gothenburg Lise Meitner Award 
is awarded annually by the "Gothenburg Physics Centre" to
a scientist who made a breakthrough discovery in physics.
The award ceremony took place at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. During this event, Klaus Blaum
held the annual Lise Meitner lecture entitled "Fundamental tests of nature with cooled and stored exotic ions".
We cordially congratulate Klaus Blaum once again on receiving this prestigious scientific award.
Further information:
Our working group is part of the newly approved Collaborative Research Center SFB 1225 "Isolierte Quantensysteme und Universalität unter extremen Bedingungen". It will be funded by the German Research Association (DFG) with ca. 10 million Euro for the next 4 years. Within the SFB 1225 ISOQUANT isolated quantum systems under extreme conditions will be investigated experimentally and theoretically.
From July 2016, an alliance of working groups from the Institute for Theoretical Physics, the
Kirchhoff Institute for Physics and the Institute of Physics of University Heidelberg under the
leadership of Prof. Jürgen Berges will start its research work together with scientists at the
Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics and the TU Wien.
The MPIK working group of Klaus Blaum is concerned with the subject "Precision physics in strong-field
QED and limits on the time variation of fundamental constants".
Further information:
On Thursday, May 19, 2016, at 10.45 a.m., the inauguration of the ultracold storage ring CSR will
take place at MPIK in Heidelberg.
This novel cryogenic electrostatic storage ring has been designed and constructed in order to
conduct experiments under conditions as they occur in space (ca. -263 °C resp. 10 K).
The CSR allows for the storage of ion beams, heavy molecules and even atomic and molecular clusters in
extremely high vacuum (below 10-13 mbar) and enables the investigation of molecular reaction
processes.
In 2009, a specially developed prototype has already been successfully put into test operation. In March 2014 the researchers succeeded in keeping an injected Ar+ beam on a stable orbit in the non-cooled storage ring for many hundred circulations. In May 2015 hydroxide ions (OH–) were stored and cooled to interstellar temperatures (ca. -263 °C) inside the CSR for the first time. Recently, the first CSR experiment with an organic interstellar molecule was performed. With this experiment the scientists studied the fragmentation of the CH+ molecular ion by ultraviolet laser light (a process referred to as photodissociation). The experimental results impressively demonstrated the potential of the CSR for experiments with organic molecular ions under true interstellar conditions.
Further information:
- Press release of MPIK (March 17, 2016)
- News of Pro-Physik
- Press release of the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung on the CSR Inauguration
- News of morgenweb / Mannheimer Morgen
Our division director Prof. Klaus Blaum has been selected to receive the Gothenburg Lise Meitner Prize 2016 "for the development of innovative techniques for high-precision measurements of stored radioactive ions".
The Gothenburg Lise Meitner Award
is awarded annually by the "Gothenburg Physics Centre" to
a scientist who made a breakthrough discovery in physics.
The Gothenburg Physics centre is a collaboration of the departments of Physics, Earth and Space Sciences,
Microtechnology and Nanoscience at the Chalmers University of Technology , and the department
of Physics at the University of Gothenburg , Sweden.
The prize was established in 2006 by the Department of Physics at University of Gothenburg and holds the honor, EUR 3000 and a work of art with an engraved plaque. In conjunction with the award ceremony the laureate holds a lecture.
The award ceremony will be held on Thursday, 29 September 2016, followed by a symposium in the honor of the laureate.
The festivities will close with a visit of the historical site, where Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch
discovered the nuclear fission process in December 1938 . That site, in the municipality of Kungälv,
is only about 20 kilometers outside of Gothenburg.
The event is supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
through the Nobel Institute of Physics and by the municipality of Kungälv.
We cordially congratulate Klaus Blaum on receiving this prestigious scientific award.
Please read more in the following press releases: