Dr. Enno Middelberg auf der Jahrestagung der VLBI Community in Manchester
Dr. Enno Middelberg works as a junior scientist at the Astronomical Institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum. His field of work is the investigation of radio sources with Very Long Baseline Interferomerty (VLBI) techniques. A significant fraction of these radio sources at cosmological distances are so-called active galactic nuclei (AGNs), i.e. black holes with collimated outflows of relative plasmas that act as accelerators for cosmic ray particles with the highest known energies. The study of such phenomena is considered the main focus of the astrophysical part of our RD. The work of Mr. Middelberg is therefore complementary to the work at LS TP4, where the theoretical description of the corresponding phenomena is in the foreground.
Applications of VLBI technology at the RUB are new and must be publicized accordingly so that the Ruhr-Universität Bochum is also perceived as a new location in the community. Since there is no other site in Germany outside of Bonn with users of VLBI, a RUB presence here is very significant.
In order to strengthen the international visibility of Dr. Middelberg accordingly, he attended the 10th European VLBI Network Symposium and the EVN Users Meeting "VLBI and the new generation of radio arrays" from September 20 to 24, 2010 with the support of the Research Department "Plasmas with Complex Interactions".
Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker & Martino Olivo: IceCube meeting in Brussels
Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker and her PhD student Martino Olivo participated in the IceCube meeting in Brussels (Belgium) from September 20-23, 2010. At the IceCube meeting, the progress of the experiment setup, detector simulations, analyses, and the physics underlying the experiment over the last six months was discussed. The IceCube collaboration meets 2 times a year to give the members of the collaboration the opportunity to exchange ideas. In particular, Martino Olivo was able to give a talk on "Gamma ray burst analysis with IceCube-79 data". Here, Mr. Olivo presented the status of his analysis, which he plans to perform with the current configuration of the IceCube detector. Currently IceCube has 79 detector strings, in the final configuration, which will be completed in February 2011, IceCube will consist of 86 detector strings.
Furthermore, a collaboration with Prof. Francis Halzen could be intensified at the conference. A possible publication on the topic "Cosmic rays from massive binary systems" was discussed at the IceCube meeting.
Furthermore, the interests of the Research Department within the IceCube collaboration could be represented at the meetings of the Collaboration Board by Jun-Prof Julia Becker.
Jun-Prof Julia Becker also participated in the meetings of the Publication Committee of the IceCube Collaboration, where upcoming publications within the IceCube Collaboration were discussed.
Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker bei der Tagung der Astronomischen Gesellschaft in Bonn
At the annual meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in Bonn (September 13-17, 2010), astronomers active in Germany met to discuss the current state of research. A total of about 350 people participated in the meeting. In lectures the current state and future projects of astronomy were discussed. In particular, a poster on "Hadronic signatures from GRBs with extra components at high energies" was presented by the traveler. The physics of particle acceleration and interaction in the highly relativistic plasmas of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) were discussed with a wide variety of scientists, such as Prof. Kowalski and Dr. Elsässer, at the meeting. Furthermore, the interests of the Research Department were represented at the meeting of the Council of Observatories on September 13.
Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker beim NOW2010
Recent results in the field of neutrino physics were presented at the "NOW 2010" conference (September 04-11, 2010). In particular, the applicant was invited by the organizers to co-chair the session "Messengers of the Universe" with Prof. Spurio. Within the framework of this activity, internationally renowned speakers were invited to give lectures, with whom the latest results in the field of high-energy neutrino astronomy could be extensively discussed at the conference. Furthermore, the applicant gave a talk on the topic "Status of the IceCube Experiment". Here the status of the IceCube Experiment regarding the detection of neutrinos from astrophysical plasmas was presented. A review paper on "Messengers of the Universe", which will be published in the journal " Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.)", is currently in preparation together with Prof. Spurio. In another article, also for publication in "Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.)", the results of the IceCube experiment will be presented. Jun.-Prof. Julia Becker had an invited talk and chair function.
(Note: The conference logo is specially designed by a local artist for each year).