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On July 5th, protons are expected once again colliding with each other at speeds close to that of light in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, also giving physicists of the PRISMA⁺ Cluster of Excellence of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) something to celebrate. Over the last three years, they have made important contributions to the upgrade of the ATLAS detector, ensuring that it can cope with even greater volumes of data during Run 3 of the largest particle accelerator in the world. As a result the researchers hope to gain new and more extensive insights into the universe of the very smallest particles. ...

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has achieved excellent marks in several areas in the 2022 U-Multirank assessment. This applies to the university’s ranking as a whole as well as to the individual subjects under review.

This year's ranking positions JGU among the top group of universities in ten key indicators in the dimensions of Teaching & Learning, Research, Knowledge Transfer, and International Orientation. Two of these indicators relate to research publications and four of them to patents. In terms of international orientation, JGU is also positioned among the front-runners with regard to the numbers of international academic staff and international joint publications.  ...

On 1 June 2022, the EU-funded project TECHNO-CLS started with the participation of the X1 collaboration of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Eleven partners from Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, Greece and Belgium are researching how to generate high-energy gamma radiation by exposure so-called oriented crystals with ultra-relativistic charged particles. The aim is to achieve photon energies of up to GeV, which is equivalent to radiation wavelengths of up to a few femtometres. So far, it has not been possible to generate such extremely short-wave radiation with existing radiation sources. From an experimental point of view, however, it promises access to unprecedentedly small structures and is thus of particular importance for research and applications in the field of nuclear and solid-state physics as well as the life sciences.

The TECHNO-CLS consortium combines theoretical, computational, experimental and technological contributions. The central task, which is being worked on at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, is the provision of a relativistic high-quality positron beam of low emittance. Such positrons can be guided over longer distances in crystals, whereby the intensity of the radiation produced there can be significantly increased by coherent effects, similar to a magnetic undulator. In addition, a case study will investigate whether positrons can also be accelerated from the source with the existing MAMI accelerator facility. This would open up the possibility of generating positron beams with the intensity and quality of the electron beam used so far in MAMI.

A pure quantum effect as the key to a better understanding of the subatomic world / New research program in Mainz bundles a wide range of expertise

In classical physics, the superposition of light waves resulting in interference is a well-known phenomenon. An interaction of light rays in the sense of a scattering is, however, classically impossible. Conversely, in the subatomic world, which is described by quantum effects, the quantum particles of light – known as photons – do indeed interact with each other. ...