Astroparticle Physics

Our research addresses key open questions in Astroparticle Physics: What is our universe made of? Why is there more matter than antimatter in the cosmos?

The mass of neutrinos, which is at least a million times smaller than that of electrons, has an as-yet unknown origin. As the universe’s most abundant matter particles, their mass plays a crucial role in the formation of large structures like galaxy clusters. The KATRIN experiment directly measures the neutrino mass with unprecedented sensitivity.

Neutrinos might also be their own antiparticles, which could help explain the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe. To test this, the LEGEND-1000 experiment searches for neutrinoless double beta decay—a process where matter is created without an equal amount of antimatter.

Although neutrinos interact only weakly with matter, they can cause tiny nuclear recoils through a process called coherent elastic scattering (CEvES). The CONUS+ experiment successfully detected reactor neutrinos via CEvES, paving the way for compact neutrino detectors.

Dark matter makes up about 25% of the universe’s energy density. What it is made of remains one of the greatest mysteries in physics. Leading candidates include WIMPs, keV-scale sterile neutrinos, and axions. KATRIN, upgraded with the TRISTAN detector, will search for sterile neutrinos. At the same time, the TRISTAN detector is also suitable to be used in the solar axion experiment, IAXO. A major focus of our division is the direct detection of dark matter with the large-scale XENON experiment.

Since the signals we seek are extremely rare, minimizing background noise—often from natural radioactivity—is critical. The newly established Heidelberg Radiation Detection Laboratory (HRD-Labs) specializes in detecting trace amounts of radioactivity.

Webseite of the Professorship for Dark Matter at the TU Munich