Many substances change their properties when they are cooled below a certain critical temperature. Such a phase transition occurs, for example, when water freezes. However, in certain metals there are phase transitions that do not exist in the macrocosm. They arise because of the special laws of quantum mechanics that apply in the realm of nature’s smallest building blocks. It is thought that the concept of electrons as carriers of quantized electric charge no longer applies near these exotic phase transitions. Researchers at the University of Bonn and ETH Zurich have now found a way to prove this directly. Their findings allow new insights into the exotic world of quantum physics. The publication has now been released in the journal Nature Physics.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts welcomed 14 new members at its annual ceremony, including mathematician Prof. Dr. Catharina Stroppel and physicist Prof. Dr. Dieter Meschede from the University of Bonn. The nine men and five women are united by exceptional research work and creative excellence in their area of expertise.
The “MS Wissenschaft” is setting sail from Berlin, and the University of Bonn is among those on board. A team from the University has designed and built an exhibit for this exhibition ship that dovetails perfectly with the topic chosen for Science Year 2023 - “Our Universe.” Entitled “Dem Universum auf der Spur” (“Tracking Down the Universe”), the exhibition gives visitors, especially schoolchildren, the opportunity to discover various research areas and methods associated with the universe in an interactive way.
Prof. Dr. Simon Stellmer has been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of a program designed to help researchers translate their ideas from previous ERC projects into commercial applications. The grant is endowed with €150,000.
From 22 - 25 March, the Physics Show of the University of Bonn made a guest appearance at the University of Tübingen.
In seeking an explanation to what holds the world together at its core, particle physicists face many unresolved mysteries. The matter and energy we know make up only five percent of the cosmos; but what is the remaining “dark matter” and “dark energy” made of? Why is there so much matter but so little antimatter in the universe? And why do the second most common known particles in the universe, called neutrinos, have such tiny masses? To answer these fundamental questions, the new Clausius Professor Jun.-Prof. Dr. Lena Funcke and her team are developing models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics and applying novel computational methods for calculating model predictions for future experiments. This will be a new research focus at the University of Bonn in the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Building Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions” (TRA “Matter”).