Kolloquien

The famous phrase "we are all made of stardust" reflects a profound truth: nearly all visible matter in the Universe was forged in stellar interiors. Nucleosynthesis proceeds by nuclear fusion up to iron, beyond which nature relies on neutron capture and β-decay to build heavier elements.   mehr...

Particle detectors have been at the heart of experimental particle physics for more than 130 years. Continuous advances in detector technology have enabled one of the great achievements of modern science: the Standard Model of particle physics, which provides an extraordinarily successful description of fundamental interactions down to smallest length scales and forms a cornerstone of our understanding of the evolution of the universe.   mehr...

It has recently become possible to numerically simulate large, representative volumes of the Universe. These cosmological (magneto)hydrodynamical simulations solve for the coupled evolution of gas, dark matter, stars, and supermassive black holes interacting via the coupled equations of self-gravity and fluid dynamics, all within the context of an expanding spacetime.   mehr...

Stochastic thermodynamics provides a universal framework for analyzing micro- and nano-sized non-equilibrium systems. Prominent examples are single molecules, molecular machines, colloidal particles in time-dependent laser traps and biochemical networks. Thermodynamic quantities like work, heat and entropy can be identified at the level of individual fluctuating trajectories. They obey universal relations like the fluctuation theorem which sharpen the second law of classical thermodynamics.   mehr...