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Dr. Horst Fichtner and Dr. Christian Schwarz at Swarthmore Collage
From June 9-11, 2010, the General Meeting of the Center of Magnetic Self-Organization (CMSO) has been held at Swarthmore Collage, near Philadelphia. From the Ruhr-University Bochum PD Horst Fichtner as representative of the "Research Group 1048: Cosmic Magnetic Fields") and Dr. Christian Schwarz of the "Research Department for Plasmas with Complex
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Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker at "Relativistic Whirlwind"
At the Relativistic Whirlwind conference (June 02-04, 2010) in Trieste, Italy, about 50 international scientists met to discuss the behavior of astrophysical plasmas in the vicinity of black holes. The conference has been held in honor of Prof. Dr. Marek Abramowicz, who turned 65 this year and has significantly shaped research in the field of black hole accretion. The conference featured a presentation by Jun-Prof Dr. Julia K. Becker, PI in the Research Department, on "Pinpointing Primordial Black Holes." Jun-Prof Becker has been working with Prof. Abramowicz on the topic of primordial black holes since 2007.
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Trip by Martino Olivo to the IceCube meeting in Annapolis, MD (May 2010)
IceCube is the best instrument for observing neutrinos from astrophysical plasmas. The measurement of neutrinos is essential for understanding the structure of shocked plasmas, which occur e.g. in supernova remnants, active galaxies and gamma ray bursts. Since July 2009, Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker's group and thus the Research Department "Plasmas with Complex Interactions" is a member of the IceCube collaboration. Every 6 months the members of IceCube meet to discuss the status of the experiment, new analysis techniques and the development of theoretical models for neutrino emission. The meetings are essential for the collaboration to advance the progress of IceCube and for us as a working group to take an active role in the experiment. PhD student Martino Olivo gave a talk on neutrino production in Gamma Ray Bursts at the Maryland meeting. At the collaboration meeting he was able to have discussions about the results of the Becker, Halzen, O'Murchada & Olivo, ApJ (2010) publication on neutrino emission from gamma-ray bursts with the IceCube collaboration specialists on this topic.
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Jens Dreyer at the IceCube Collaboration Meeting
The IceCube neutrino telescope is currently the most powerful instrument for observing neutrinos from astrophysical plasmas. All scientists involved in this project are united in the IceCube Collaboration. This international collaboration meets semi-annually, in the spring in the U.S. and in the fall in Europe. The collaboration meetings are used for exchange of ideas and discussion among the members, who come from the USA, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium and Germany, among others. Mr. Dreyer and Mr. Olivo attended the collaboration meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, USA, from May 1 to 10, 2010. During the meeting, Mr. Dreyer presented a software project that is being conducted in Bochum at the RD. This project deals with the reprogramming and improvement of a central software component of the simulation chain of IceCube and was therefore received with great interest.
Furthermore, Mr. Dreyer was able to discuss ideas for future data analysis with many experts of the collaboration. Furthermore, Dr. Dreyer represented the interests of the Research Department within the IceCube collaboration on the Collaboration Board. Martino Olivo gave a talk on neutrino production in Gamma Ray Bursts, which was also received with great interest by the collaboration. Furthermore, Mr. Olivo was able to discuss the results of a publication dealing with neutrino production within shocked plasmas in Gamma Ray Bursts with the specialists of the IceCube collaboration.
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Dirk Luggenhölscher bei Prof. Yi-Kang Pu an der Tsinghua Universität in China
Vom 05.04. - 30.04.2010 war Dr. Dirk Luggenhölscher (Institut für Experimentalphysik V) für einen Forschungsaufenthalt bei Prof. Yi-Kang Pu im Department of Electrical Engineering der Tsinghua Universität in Beijing.
Ziel war der Aufbau eines Diodenlasersystems zur Messung von Dichte und Temperatur von metastabilen Helium-Atomen in verschiedenen Entladungstypen. Von besonderem Interesse sind dabei Atmosphärendruck Plasma-Jets, die ähnlich einer dielektrisch behinderten Entladung betrieben werden. Es wird vermutet, dass die Metastabilen eine tragende Rolle bei dem Energietransfer in den Bereich außerhalb der Anregungszone spielen, weshalb die Kenntnis der Dichte dieser Spezies besonders wichtig ist.
Der Besuch vertieft die Zusammenarbeit beider Gruppen mit ähnlichen Forschungsinteressen und soll weiter ausgebaut werden.
Dieser Aufenthalt wurde durch das Research Department ermöglicht.
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40th Saas-Fee Course: Astrophysics at Very-High Energies
The 40th Saas-Fee Course, organized by the Swiss Society of Astrophysics and Astronomy (SSAA), has been held in Les Deablerets in the Swiss Alps during March 14-20, 2010. The course has run annually since 1971, and this time the theme chosen was "Astrophysics at Very-High Energies."
Undergraduate and graduate students traveled to the course from almost every corner of the world. The lectures were given by the three world-leading scientists in the field of high-energy astrophysics. They are Prof. Felix Aharonian (DIAS, Dublin & MPIK, Heidelberg), Prof. Lars Bergström (Stockholm University), Dr. Charles Dermer (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory). The speakers presented the state of the science in the field of high-energy gamma rays, which has been revolutionized in recent years with the success of Cherenkov astronomy and finally with the launch of the NASA Fermi mission. Other topics such as the study of gamma rays from galactic and extragalactic sources and the detection of dark matter were also heavily laid out in the presentations. Many unanswered questions and predictions were also addressed to give the audience some ideas for their research.
Since the lectures were held in the morning and late in the afternoon, there was time for getting to know each other and for informal discussions with other course participants.
The Research Department "Plasmas with Complex Interactions" made it possible for Jenny Reimchen to participate in the Winter School.
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FOR 1123: International Workshop "Diagnostics of Microplasmas"
21.-23. März 2010, RUB Veranstaltungszentrum, Saal 3
Microplasmas are receiving much attention recently. The basic processes controlling these plasmas are not yet fully understood. One of the reasons is a lack of diagnostics - largely due to the inherent difficulties dealing with small dimensions and rapid phenomena.
The purpose of this workshop is to bring together experts in diagnostics and diagnostic-near modeling of small scale atmospheric pressure microplasmas to discuss advances in this area. The number of participants is limited to about 60. Participation in this workshop is by invitation only.
The program calls for invited talks and limited oral and poster presentations. The schedule will provide ample opportunity for discussions in order to allow for a genuine workshop atmosphere.
The workshop is organized by the Research Unit Physics of Microplasmas FOR 1123 of the German Science Foundation (DFG) within the Research Department “Plasmas with Complex Interactions” of Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Invited lecturers:
- Ronny Brandenburg, Germany
- Christoph Hollenstein, Switzerland
- Ömer Ilday, Turkey
- Gerrit Kroesen, The Netherlands
- Dragana Maric, Serbia
- Kari Niemi, United Kingdom
- Yi-Kang Pu, China
- Vincent Puech, France
- Claudia Lazzaroni, France
- Yukinori Sakiyama, USA
Read more about the workshop here.
http://www.for1123.rub.de/FG1123/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114:international-workshop-for1123&catid=45:meetings&Itemid=120
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Trip to the DPG Particle Physics Conference in March 2010
At the annual meeting of particle physicists in the German Physical Society, particle and astroparticle physicists active in Germany meet to discuss the current state of research. Dr. Jens Dreyer, PI in the Research Department, and Katharina Brodatzki, PhD student in the Research Department, participated in the meeting. Presentations were given on the current state and future projects in particle and astroparticle physics. Talks on "High-energy neutrinos from Starbursts" (Jens Dreyer) and "Photon-photon interactions in AGN" were presented by the participants. The physics of particle acceleration and interaction in the highly relativistic plasmas could be discussed with other scientists at the meeting.
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International Cooperation Agreement FOR 1048 and Center of Magnetic Self-Organization, USA
The Research Department "Plasmas with Complex Interaction" announces a new cooperation: Prof. Rainer Grauer signed the International Cooperation Agreement between the Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas (CMSO), distributed over six institutions in the U.S. (the University of Wisconsin, the University of Chicago, Princeton University, Swarthmore College, University of New Hampshire, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory) and the Research Unit Instabilities, Turbulence and Transport in Cosmic Magnetic Fields (DFG-FOR 1048) at Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) is approved and will enter into force on May 1, 2010.
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Ankara
09.03.2010 - Benedikt Niermann bei Prof. Ilday an der Bilkent Universität
Vom 1.3. – 7.3.2010 besuchte Benedikt Niermann (Institut für Experimentalphysik 2) das Institut von Prof. Ömer Ilday in Ankara, Türkei. Dort erhielt er eine Schulung zum Aufbau und Verwendung von Faser-Laser Systemen zur spektroskopischen Untersuchung von Mikroplasmen. Ziel war es, erste Versuche zu unternehmen, die Plasmaentladung mit dem Lasersystem zu synchronisieren und mit Hilfe der sehr kurzen aber hochenergetischen Laserpulsen das Plasma zu zünden.
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Theoretical Physics
04.03.2010 - Stefan Artmann bei Professor Lin am SSL Berkeley der University of California
Vom 31.01.2010 - 01.03.2010 besuchte Stefan Artmann (Institut für theoretische Physik IV) das "Space Sciences Laboratory" (SSL) der University of California in Berkeley und erhielt einen Einblick in die Arbeit des Teams um Professor Lin (siehe Foto). Schwerpunkt war die Einarbeitung in die numerische Datenauswertung des 3d-Plasma Instruments an Bord der 1994 gestarteten Raumsonde WIND. Das 3dP-Instrument ist in der Lage die räumliche Intensitätsverteilung für verschiedene Energiebereiche der kosmischen Strahlung im Sonnenwind zu messen. Aus dieser Intensitätsverteilung lassen sich unter anderem Intensität- und Anisotropie-Zeit Profile ableiten, die mit denen am Institut von Professor Schlickeiser erarbeiteten theoretischen Zeit-Profilen für solare flare events verglichen werden können. Hieraus ergeben sich Rückschlüsse über die Gültigkeit der aufgestellten Transporttheorien der solaren energetischen Teilchen und über die Größenordnungen der für den diffusiven Transport wichtigen Parameter. Neben dem Zugang zu wissenschaftlich interessanten Daten brachte der Aufenthalt dank der außerordentlichen Hilfsbereitschaft des Teams um Professor Lin viele neu Erkenntnisse für Stefan, und das freundschaftliche Arbeitsklima während der Zeit in Berkeley lässt auch auf eine zukünftige Zusammenarbeit hoffen. Das Research Department "Plasmas with Complex Interactions" finanzierte diese Reise.