Past activities

Bonn University physics students together with Prof. Herbert Dreiner and Michael Kortmann presented their award winning show at the Weltmaschine Exhibition at Heidelberg University in December, 2009. In an entertaining and edifying manner the physics from atoms, to elementary particles, to cosmology was presented with many live experiments for an audience of young and old, as also reported in the Rhein Neckar Zeitung. The particle physics show will also be on tour in 2010.

There was a Bethe Colloqium on 10. December (3:15 pm):

• Eduardo de Rafael    (Marseille, CPT)
• Present Status of Lepton Anomalous Magnetic Moments
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

There was a Bethe Colloqium on 19. November (3.15 pm):

• Subir Sarkar    (University of Oxford)
• Cosmology beyond the Standard Model
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

Abstract: Precision observations of the cosmic microwave backround and of the large-scale clustering of galaxies have supposedly confirmed the indication from the Hubble diagram of Type Ia supernovae that the universe is dominated by some form of 'dark energy' which is causing the expansion rate to accelerate. Although hailed as having established a 'standard model' for cosmology, this raises a profound problem for fundamental physics. I will discuss whether the observations might be equally well explained in inhomogeneous cosmological models that do not invoke dark energy and will be tested by forthcoming observations.

There was a Bethe Colloqium on 22. October (3.15 pm):

• Hermann Nicolai    (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
• The hyperbolic algebra E10: searching for a fundamental symmetry of space - time - matter
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

On the 9th and 10th of October 2009 the 1st Bethe Center Workshop takes place at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef. This workshop provides the possibility for the members of the bctp to introduce their work with the intention to create a stimulating atmosphere for further discussion and collaboration.

The schedule of the talks at this workshop is available here.

The Bonn Physikshow has been what one might want to call a block buster for science education and entertainment since 2002. For these past seven years, Professor Herbert Dreiner, Michael Kortmann and second year physics students have been presenting every year a new two-hour show where the students demonstrate and explain fun and fascinating physics experiments to an audience of mainly young middle school students. The show mostly covered topics in classical physics. More recently a new show has been developed on the topic of elementary particle physics and adressed at students age 15 and older. On 22 July 2009 the European Physical Society has honored Prof. H. Dreiner and M. Kortmann for this outstanding project with the special outreach prize. It has been recognized that Prof. Dreiner's and Mr Kortmann's commitment has not only motivated and attracted a young audience to physics, but has also set up an educational tool addressed at physics students who develop and perform the show.

The 19th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics will take place in Bonn from August 31 to September 5, 2009. This conference is interdisciplinary in nature and brings together physicists working on the few-body aspects of physics, emphasizing recent developments in nuclear, particle, atomic, and molecular physics. The topics of the current conference include: Nuclear forces and few-nucleon systems, Light nuclei and electroweak probes, Few-hadrons systems (including quark models), Few-atom systems (including ultracold gases), Strange and exotic systems (including hypernuclei), Nuclear structure, clusters and halos. For more information, see the conference website.

There was a Bethe Colloqium on 25. June (3.15 pm):

• Karlheinz Langanke    (GSI Darmstadt)
• Supernova dynamics and nucleosynthesis
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

With his Bethe Colloquium on "The LHC: the world's most powerful microscope and telescope", Professor John Ellis (CERN) attracted a broad audience reaching form theoretical physicists to experimental physicists at the University of Bonn. It was recorded by the uni-bonn.tv, including an interview with Prof. Ellis on prospects and challenges for particle physics in the next years.

There was a Bethe Colloqium on 14. May (3.15 pm):

• John Ellis    (CERN)
• The LHC: the world's most powerful microscope and telescope
• Hörsaal I, Physikalisches Institut

On June 30th, Professor Stefan Pokorski from Warsaw University was talking about "Gravitino dark matter and high reheating temperature" in a special Theory Seminar. Prof. Pokorski is a frequent visitor of the Theory Department of the University of Bonn. In 2004 he was visiting Bonn as a Humboldt laureate holding a joint position at Bonn and the University of Hamburg.

The workshop Mirror Symmetry 2009 aims to create a forum for scientists working in string theory, algebraic geometry, symplectic geometry, homological algebra, automorphic forms and number theory with a strong interest in mirror symmetry in its various manifestations. Mirror symmetry not only brings together these different research areas but has also triggered significant progress in these areas separately. The most prominent examples in mathematics are the constructive approach to the SYZ conjecture via tropical geometry, the recent work on counting of DT invariants in derived categories and the intricate explicit calculations of the Fukaya category. Within the last year wall crossing formulas for symplectic invariants studied by Kontsevich, Soibleman and others have been related to the theory of automorphic forms. Physical implications for the black holes entropy problem have been investigated and significant progress has been made in the enumerative geometry of open Gromov-Witten invariants following the physical approach using the B-model. The workshop will take place in the week from June 2nd to June 5th, and is organized by Prof. Huybrechts and Prof. Klemm of the bctp.

Only about ten percent of the Universe are known to be made out of baryonic matter. The far larger part is believed to consist of dark matter and dark energy. To uncover the secrets of this invisible part of the universe is the goal of the scientists of the national special research field (SFB) TRR 33: "The Dark Universe". In addition to the University of Bonn, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (spokes-university) are involved in the TRR 33. The spokesperson for the Bonn scientists is Prof. Hans Peter Nilles. In the video (in German) he introduces the topic and comments on the structure of TRR 33.

Professor Howard Haber from the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA has been awarded the research prize of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation to work at Bonn University. He will be visiting the Bethe Center as a Humboldt laureate in 2009 and 2010.

Professor Haber works in theoretical elementary particle physics. He is highly renowned for his work on collider physics and the physics of Higgs bosons. He is a co-author of "The Higgs Hunter's Guide", which provided a blueprint for Higgs searches at current and future colliders. He has made several pioneering contributions to the field of supersymmetry phenomenology, and co-authored one of the major early reviews that subsequently defined this field. Prof. Haber has also written a number of seminal papers on the properties of Higgs bosons in supersymmetric theories. In particular, this work demonstrated that there is an upper bound for the mass of the lightest Higgs boson of the supersymmetric Standard Model, which (when radiative corrections are taken into account) cannot be more than about 135 GeV. The search for Higgs bosons in this mass range is one of the key activities of the LHC. Prof. Haber is a regular contributor to the Particle Data Group's Review of Particle Physics. In Bonn, he will continue his work on LHC physics, focusing on the new upcoming data, with the hope of finding evidence for and interpretations of new physics beyond the Standard Model.

From March 16 to March 19, 2009 the yearly workshop "Beyond the Standard Model" is taking place at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef. This workshop is dedicated to research topics reaching from particle physics and cosmology to string theory. The workshop is linked to the bctp via the TransRegio - "The Dark Universe". Next year the XXII workshop will take place from March 8 to March 11, 2010 and will be organized by Prof. A. Klemm from the bctp.

Professor Jihn E. Kim from Seoul National University visits the bctp for two weeks in February 2009. Professor Kim is a member of the Bethe Center advisory board and a frequent visitor to Bonn. The research groups of Prof. Kim and Prof. Nilles enjoy a close collaboration for more than 25 years. Prof. Kim's research interests concentrate on particle physics and cosmology. He has made numerous decisive contributions to this research field, most notably the suggestion of the so-called invisible axion. Among many awards, he is a recipient of the Humboldt research prize in 2001. He is a permanent member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.

Professor Eric Braaten from the Ohio State University, USA has been awarded the research prize of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation and is visiting the Bethe Center as a Humboldt laureate in 2009.

Professor Braaten has built a high international reputation through his outstanding theoretical research in several fields of physics. His significant contributions to high energy and nuclear physics have improved our understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics, the fundamental field theory of the strong nuclear force. His most recent work on exotic hadrons is of utmost importance for the upcoming FAIR facility. In the last 10 years, Braaten has expanded his research horizons into the exciting new field of ultracold atoms, using his mastery of effective field theory methods to analyze the properties of ultracold atoms with tunable interactions. In Germany, he continues his research on systems in the strong interaction regime ranging from high-energy physics to ultracold atoms.

Professor Braaten is hosted by Professors H.-W. Hammer and U.-G. Meißner at the HISKP.

On November 7th, 2008 the inauguration of the Bethe Center for Theoretical Physics was celebrated with a special Opening Colloquium. It was attended by more then 300 visitors from Bonn University and other national and international institutions. The videos of the opening speeches and the scientific talks as well as a number of photos are available online.