Further Funding for Collaborative Research Center in Astronomy

Uncovering the mechanisms of origin

“While our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of matter is already well established, the specific interactions responsible for multi-messenger emissions from galaxies across a broad range of energies and particle species remain an important research question,” says Professor Julia Tjus from RUB, the spokesperson for the Collaborative Research Center. By combining the study of cosmic radiation with particle physics experiments, the CRC team aims to uncover the mechanisms behind the formation of high-energy particles, gamma rays and neutrinos. In addition, computer-aided modeling will shed light on the interaction between charged particles and turbulent electromagnetic fields at the plasma level. 

Questions about dark matter

Since visible matter accounts for only 20 percent of the Universe, understanding the nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest challenges of modern science. “Four years ago, we began working on a unified description of interacting cosmic matter and brought together scientists from the fields of particle, plasma and astrophysics to address three central scientific questions,” says Julia Tjus:

1. What interactions exist between magnetized, turbulent astrophysical plasmas and cosmic radiation, and what conclusions can be drawn from them about the origin of cosmic rays?
2. How do precision measurements of particle interactions help us understand the astrophysical signatures of cosmic radiation?
3. What connections exist between the signatures of visible and dark matter?

In the first funding phase, the Collaborative Research Center developed and tested global structures on the basis of individual examples. In the second funding phase, it will focus on the quantification and systematization of these framework concepts. “Building on the results of the past four years, we will further expand our approach to developing methods for bridging boundaries in order to answer our fundamental questions in the coming years,” says Julia Tjus.

Excellence in particle physics at the Ruhr Innovation Lab

The now extended CRC, together with the Cluster of Excellence “Color meets Flavor” – for which TU Dortmund University secured funding in collaboration with partners – is evidence of the strong research performance of RUB and TU Dortmund University in the field of physics. The teams from Bochum and Dortmund bring together particle, hadron, astro and plasma physics in one of the four research focal areas at the Ruhr Innovation Lab: “Matter in Terrestrial & Cosmic Laboratories” aims to bridge the gap between controlled lab measurements and high-energy cosmic observations and to develop an integrated perspective. This should lead to new findings and insights for understanding matter from the quantum to the ensemble level.

Several TU Dortmund University research groups in the CRC

Several research groups from TU Dortmund University are participating in CRC 1491: Astroparticle physicists led by Professor Wolfgang Rhode, co-spokesperson for the CRC, Professor Christian Glaser and Dr. Dominik Elsässer, who are using data from several large-scale experiments such as IceCube in Antarctica and MAGIC on La Palma, and particle physicists led by Professor Johannes Albrecht, Professor Kevin Kröninger and Dr. Felix Riehn, who are involved in the LHCb and ATLAS experiments at CERN in Switzerland and also conducting research on the modeling of hadron collisions. Within the CRC, the researchers are working closely with the Lamarr Institute to analyze the experimental data using machine learning and artificial intelligence methods.

Further information on Collaborative Research Center 1491

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