The "International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU 2023)" took place in the historic building of the Erbacher Hof in the old town of Mainz from October 16 to 20, 2023. More than 140 participants from 15 countries discussed their research results on topics in the field of hadron physics and related areas in 26 plenary and 77 parallel lectures sessions. Future developments in this field of research, such as the Electron-Ion-Collider in the USA and the Mainz Energy Recovering Accelerator MESA in Mainz, as well as new forward-looking developments in theory, also played a major role.
In addition to the lecture sessions, the program also included a visit to the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) on the campus of Johannes Gutenberg University followed by a poster session. In addition, Prof. Dr. Thomas Haberer, scientific-technical director of the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center at Heidelberg University Hospital, gave a public evening lecture on "Tumor Therapy at Particle Accelerators - From the Laboratory to Clinical Routine," illustrating how the tools of basic research can find application in people's everyday lives.
For financial support of the event, the organisers thank the European Physical Journal A (Hadrons and Nuclei) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz.
The "International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU 2023)" took place in the historic building of the Erbacher Hof in the old town of Mainz from October 16 to 20, 2023. More than 140 participants from 15 countries discussed their research results on topics in the field of hadron physics and related areas in 26 plenary and 77 parallel lectures sessions. Future developments in this field of research, such as the Electron-Ion-Collider in the USA and the Mainz Energy Recovering Accelerator MESA in Mainz, as well as new forward-looking developments in theory, also played a major role.
The "25th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics" took place this year on the campus of JGU Mainz. In 13 sessions over 5 days more than 150 scientists from all over the world discussed current issues in the fields of hadrons, (hyper-)nuclear physics, cold atoms and molecular physics. Ukrainian researchers were connected online, as they were unable to attend on site due to the war in Ukraine.
After years of development work, the new Pixel Vertex Detector (PXD2) was successfully installed in the international Belle-II experiment at the SuperKEKB electron-positron accelerator in Japan. Concettina Sfienti's group at the Institute of Nuclear Physics was also involved in the design and construction. Under Mainz leadership, real-time monitoring of data quality was implemented and key sections of the software controlling the PXD2 were programmed. In addition, sensor modules were tested at MAMI for their radiation hardness.
The special feature of the PXD2 is that, due to its very compact design, it can deliver 50,000 high-resolution images per second at a distance of only 1.4 centimeters from the collision point. From this, the exact decay location of short-lived particles, especially B mesons, can be determined very accurately and the decay products can be detected with high precision. In combination with the high collision rate at SuperKEKB, fundamental phenomena such as CP violation can thus be studied in high detail - with the goal of understanding the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the universe!
The new detector is scheduled to start taking data in early 2024.
After years of development work, the new Pixel Vertex Detector (PXD2) was successfully installed in the international Belle-II experiment at the SuperKEKB electron-positron accelerator in Japan. Concettina Sfienti's group at the Institute of Nuclear Physics was also involved in the design and construction. Under Mainz leadership, real-time monitoring of data quality was implemented and key sections of the software controlling the PXD2 were programmed. In addition, sensor modules were tested at MAMI for their radiation hardness.
From 26.06.23 to 30.06.23, this year's workshop of the "Proton Radius European Network" (PREN 2023) and the "Muonic Atom Spectroscopy Theory Initiative" (µASTI) took place in the premises of HIM at JGU Mainz. Over the five days, more than 50 scientists from more than a dozen countries discussed their research on the structure of nucleons and nuclei, as well as the search for New Physics, by confronting precise theory predictions with electron scattering experiments and spectroscopy of in part exotic atoms and molecules. "Overall, we had a very diverse program with many exciting discussions that motivate and inspire us to work even more closely on common issues in the future. We are already looking forward to the next event," summed up local organizers Franziska Hagelstein (Institute of Nuclear Physics) and Randolf Pohl (Institute of Physics).
The Gutenberg Academy of the Johannes Gutenberg University regularly supports up to 25 outstanding doctoral students and artists. In addition to interdisciplinary exchange and financial support for conference participation, for example, the junior members can benefit above all from the exchange with established scientists, as well as other renowned people from politics, business and society.
In order to be accepted as a junior member of the Gutenberg Academy, a two-stage selection process must be completed. We are happy to announce that this year Saskia Plura, PhD student in the group of Prof. Achim Denig, was successful in this process!
Saskia Plura's PhD research focuses on searches for light dark matter particles in existing data from the BESIII experiment and also prepares future searches for such particles at the DarkMESA experiment using detailed simulation studies.
We congratulate Dr. Oleksandra Deineka on completing her PhD dissertation titled
Coupled-channel dynamics in hadronic systems
This thesis is dedicated to the dispersion relation approach, which is built upon the unitarity and analyticity properties of the scattering matrix. We apply it to study the pion-pion and pion-kaon scattering, in which the lightest scalar resonances show up. The knowledge of the pion-pion amplitude allows us to perform an analysis of the double-virtual photon-photon scattering to two pions, which contributes to the hadronic light-by-light scattering part of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. We also consider the two photon fusion reaction with D-meson pair in the final state, which is expected to contain two charmonium resonances.
Two master's theses appeared in the 2022 announcement of Springer Spektrum's "BestMasters"-Program Both theses in the Master's of Education Program in Physics were completed under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Stefan Scherer. Lukas Scharfe's thesis was supervised in cooperation with Dr. Moritz Rahn at the Institute of Mathematics at JGU and was simultaneously accepted as a thesis for a B.Sc. in Mathematics.
February 11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science: A good occasion to introduce our new junior research group leader Dr. Franziska Hagelstein and her research. Franziska Hagelstein studied physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and received her PhD in theoretical nuclear physics there in 2017 under the supervision of Prof. Marc Vanderhaeghen and Dr. Vladimir Pascalutsa. After several years of research at the University of Bern and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, she returned to JGU in 2022 and has since been leading the Emmy Noether Young Investigator Group "Hadronic Contributions to Precision Observables and the Search for New Physics" at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. She currently supervises two PhD students and is supported in her research by a postdoc - Dr. Vadim Lensky.
According to her own statement, JGU is an almost optimal place for her research, because on the one hand she finds here an inspiring exchange with the colleagues in the large theory group and at the same time has the proximity to collaborations from experimental nuclear and atomic physics, such as in the experiments for proton form factor (A1 collaboration , JGU) and proton polarizability measurements (A2 collaboration , JGU) at the electron accelerator MAMI, or the spectroscopy experiments on normal and muonic atoms (group around Prof. Randolf Pohl , JGU). Particularly exciting is that these experiments play a central role in the so-called "proton radius puzzle".
After years of development work, the new Pixel Vertex Detector (PXD2) was successfully installed in the international
The Gutenberg Academy of the Johannes Gutenberg University regularly supports up to 25 outstanding doctoral students and artists. In addition to interdisciplinary exchange and financial support for conference participation, for example, the junior members can benefit above all from the exchange with established scientists, as well as other renowned people from politics, business and society.
We congratulate Dr. Oleksandra Deineka on completing her PhD dissertation titled
February 11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science: A good occasion to introduce our new junior research group leader