Cooperations at the Department of Physics

The department of physics maintains a longstanding strategic partnership with the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, formalized in a cooperation agreement. The department and GSI work closely together to accelerate research and development in the field of heavy-ion and accelerator physics.

A key focus of this collaboration is the mega-project FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research), one of Europe’s largest accelerator facilities, currently under construction in Darmstadt. Researchers from the department and GSI contribute their expertise through joint projects.

The close collaboration between the department and GSI can also be seen in numerous joint professorial appointments.

Researchers from the department play an active role in international particle physics research projects at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva. Phsyicists from Frankfurt are involved in numerous experiments, particularly at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator.

One project of outstanding importance is the ALICE experiment, in which researchers from the department play a key role in the technical development and operation of the detector. The ALICE experiment investigates extremely hot and dense states of matter similar to the conditions that existed immediately after the Big Bang, with the aim of answering fundamental questions about the structure of matter and the origin of the universe. 

The department of physics works closely with the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Sciences (FIAS). In addition to their positions at the department of physics, many researches are also fellows or senior fellows at FIAS and work in international teams that cover a wide range of physics, from astrophysics and heavy-ion physics to biophysics. The department of physics and FIAS also collaborate on training young scientists, for example, through the HGS-HIRe for FAIR graduate school.