Category Archives: Niels Bohr Institue

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Copenhagen, Denmark, Munich Quantum Valley, Niels Bohr Institue, Physics, Quantum Science

This week, I have the pleasure of enjoying Copenhagen once again after quite some time.

Following an invitation of the Munich Quantum Valley (MQV) by Invest in Denmark and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, I am joining a delegation to visit the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) in addition to visiting the IQT Nordics conference.

This also makes up for a great opportunity to see my/our old home and university, refresh old memories and to see all the many changes the city has seen since we left back in 2014.

15 years in ATLAS

ATLAS, Berlin, CERN, Copenhagen, Denmark, DESY, France, Geneva, Germany, Humboldt Universität, LHC, LLP, LMU, Munich, Niels Bohr Institue, Outreach, Physics, Switzerland

Fifteen years ago, Tuesday 8 March 2005 at 9:57am, I received my CERN account, to start working for the ATLAS Experiment.

What started as an internship – chosen because of a lack of courses in the field I originally planned to pursuit, the physics of macromolecules – in the high-energy-physics group at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, turned into a stay at CERN during the Summer Student Programme and a Master’s thesis about the electron identification with the ATLAS transition-radiation tracker (internal) together with studies on a precision measurement of the W-boson mass.

During my PhD at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Zeuthen and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and various short stays at CERN I was mainly working on the commissioning of the ATLAS pixel detector (internal) and data-driven algorithms to determine the W+Jets background in events with pair-produced top quarks, and was involved in the startup of the German National Analysis Facility.

Going back to the Niels Bohr Institute as a postdoc, I started working on searches for unconventional signatures and long-lived particles and got stuck with that ever since.

I started out looking for heavy, charged long-lived particles, an analysis I continued also after moving to LMU Munich in 2014.  Since then, I had the pleasure of leading two ATLAS physics subgroups – supersymmetry with R-parity-violating and long-lived signatures as well as exotics with unconventional and exotic Higgs decays – and joined a community effort in documenting the current status and harmonise searches for long-lived particles at the LHC. Amongst other things, I am currently also working on searches for Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns as signatures of strongly coupled Hidden Sectors and just finished my habilitation.

Besides physics analysis, especially looking for long-lived particles, I was always interested in science communication and education and have been involved in outreach projects since 2006. Highlights were and are certainly the design of the ATLAS LEGO model in 2011, the creation of the ‘Build Your Own Particle Detector‘ programme in 2013 and running it since, the coordination of the ATLAS contribution to the 2019 CERN Open Days, and the still ongoing work on a new ATLAS Visitor Centre. Since 2018, I am also an Education & Outreach coordinator for the ATLAS Collaboration.

I hope to have quite a few more years within ATLAS and other collaborations …

O’zapft is

Copenhagen, LMU, Munich, Niels Bohr Institue, Physics

After spending yet another great time in the beautiful city of Copenhagen, the time has come to say good bye. There have been a few ideas, even fewer possibilities and finally only one decision. And … tada, the next step in my/our life will be the capital of Bavaria, Munich.

The LMU Munich has kindly offered me a position as a lecturer (Akademischer Rat) working on the ATLAS Experiment for the next three years (with the option of six years in total), which I just accepted.

So if all the bureaucracy doesn’t kill me/us on the way and we manage to find a place to stay in time, we’ll be in town by the 1st of April 2014.

When I am done rearranging my web site, the Copenhagen Guest Couch will (hopefully) be transformed into a Munich Guest Couch, of course.