Category Archives: Physics

ESO Supernova

Garching, Movies, Munich, Outreach, Physics

‘A New Supernova over Munich’, that’s the slogan of the ESO planetarium and visitor centre that opened recently. It’s not exactly above Munich, as Garching is a bit of a subway ride outside of town, but it’s certainly worth the trip!

They have a very nice permanent exhibition called “The Living Universe” which covers about everything from where we are to what we know about our Universe. There’s temporary exhibitions as well as a fantastic planetarium, with lots of different shows, on top of that. I’ve seen the “Phantom of the Universe” as well as “Two Small Pieces of Glass — The Amazing Telescope“, and they are both great movies. Obviously the former of the two has to be, as it features the ATLAS experiment and was in part done by ATLAS people (thanks for that).

The best part is, that both the exhibitions and the planetarium shows are (still) free of charge. So there’s really no excuse for not passing by!!

LLP and SUSY workshops

CERN, Geneva, LLP, Physics, Stockholm, Sweden

Spring time is (apparently) workshop time.

Last week I spent three days at the 3rd LHC Long-lived Particle workshop at CERN where the status and plans for searches for long-lived particles (LLPs) at LHC and elsewhere have been presented and discussed. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to put out a white paper, summarising current LLP search coverage, ways to improve it and a unified ‘language’ (set of simplified models) for sensitivity studies and reinterpretations.

This week I went to Stockholm for the 2018 ATLAS Supersymmetry Workshop to meet with a large fraction of the ATLAS SUSY community to (again) discuss the status quo as well as plans and ideas for the future (in terms of supersymmetry searches within ATLAS, also including a few LLP searches). Great location (institute and city) and nice workshop …

IPPOG in Pisa

CERN, Italy, Outreach, Pisa

Just went straight from the IPPOG (International Particle Physics Outreach Group) meeting in Pisa to CERN last weekend. In Pisa we had, once again, plenty of discussions about outreach in particle physics, International Masterclasses, exhibits and other related subjects. We also had a very nice visit and tour of the EGO Virgo site as part of the programme. Obviously, the funny tower was part of the programme as well. Since Sunday I am at CERN for the ATLAS physics and performance week and again lots of meetings on outreach and redoing the ATLAS Visitors Centre.

ATLAS Outreach

CERN, Outreach, Physics

As of today I officially have the pleasure of being the new ATLAS Outreach co-coordinator. After my election back in October and a steady ramp up in past few weeks/months, I am now officially taking on the role and will be doing it for at least the following two years.

I started doing particle physics outreach already during my masters degree back in 2006 and took part in and/or organised a variety of outreach activities over the past twelve years. From Open Day events, Q’n’A brunches, school lectures and science slams to being a CERN Guide, hosting workshops at science festivals and organising social media events. Obviously, the ATLAS LEGO model – which also marked the beginning of my involvement in the ATLAS Outreach team – as well as the creation of the ‘Build Your Own Particle Detector‘ programme were, and still are, a great experience.

It’s going to be exciting times and I look forward to working on all the different aspects of ATLAS Outreach. From our communication and education programmes, to activities at and around CERN as well as getting ATLAS institutes and members involved in what we do, both for ATLAS and at their home institutes. In addition there’s some nice ideas/projects in the pipeline for these two year, so stay tuned.

And yes, if you are an ATLAS member and not doing any outreach yet, please get in touch!
And if you are doing it, please still get in touch, we wanna know about it!

Things to do in Advent

Outreach, Physics

In case you have some spare time during Advent, here’s two things to keep you busy and (possibly) make you smarter. Both the ‘MATHEON  calendar‘ (mathematics) and the ‘Physics in Advent‘ calendar are available in English this year. There’s also a juniors math version called ‘Mathe im Advent‘, though it’s in German only.

Feel free to share their Facebook (#PhysicsInAdvent) and Twitter (@PhysicsInAdvent) pages/posts/tweets and help spread the word!