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NEWS FROM HIM
30th Aug 2019

Dear partners & colleagues,

in June, our HIM celebrated its tenth anniversary: In 2009, the Helmholtz Institute Mainz was the first of today nine Helmholtz Association institutes founded on the initiative of the German federal government.
On this occasion we celebrated the successful start and our remarkable research achievements over the last years with a formal reception and a huge staff party.
A short overview on our milestones and some photos of the celebrations can be found below.

Further, you can explore the highlights of our six research sections, interesting papers and other news.

We would be delighted if you would share this HIMsight with friends and colleagues so that we can quickly extend our audience.
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Yours
Prof. Kurt Aulenbacher - Director
Signature Prof. Kurt Aulenbacher - Director
About HIM
10 years of HIM
10 years of HIM

Exploring the strong interaction over the last ten years

The Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM) celebrates its tenth anniversary. With its remarkable research achievements in the fields of physics and chemistry, HIM has become an international research center of scientific excellence. At the heart of the institute's work is the FAIR accelerator complex, currently being built at GSI in Darmstadt.

"Our hard work over the institute's first ten years has created a lasting basis that will ensure we continue to make outstanding progress in future. We have succeeded in our aims not only of proposing and establishing the first Helmholtz Institute in Germany as a cooperation between GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz but also of constructing a state-of-the-art research building," said Professor Kurt Aulenbacher, Director of HIM. "It was the appeal of our infrastructure, in particular, that helped to attract a group of leading researchers to come to Mainz. The research program, which was initially both focused and extremely ambitious, is now being managed by these first researchers and their teams with the fertile results we have seen so far," the HIM Director stated.

Research
Study of the mechanism that suppresses superheavy element production in cold fusion reactions
Study of the mechanism that suppresses superheavy element production in cold fusion reactions

The six superheavy elements with atomic numbers 107-112 were discovered at GSI. They were produced in nuclear fusion reactions using shell-stabilized target nuclei at and around doubly-magic 208Pb. These reaction partners allow compound nuclei containing all nucleons of the projectile and target nuclei to be produced at low excitation energy. This favors their survival on the evolution to a superheavy nucleus, containing all protons of the two reaction partners.

CW-Linac Demonstrator
CW-Linac Demonstrator

Heavy Ion Beam Tests and further Preparation of cw-Linac-Infrastructure

Recently two additional Demonstrator machine runs have been accomplished after successful commissioning of the demonstrator cryomodule equipped with a 217 MHz multi gap Crossbar H-mode structure (CH) and first testing with beam from the GSI High Charge State Injector.

MiLiQuant: Putting quantum technology into practice
MiLiQuant: Putting quantum technology into practice

Quantum technology is about to make the leap from scientific research to concrete applications. Contributing to this is the new MiLiQuant research project in which businesses and universities are cooperating to develop new applications for quantum technology.

In the collaborative project MiLiQuant, short for "Miniaturized light sources for use in industrial quantum sensors and quantum imaging devices", the researchers enhance diode laser beam sources so that they can be employed in industrial quantum technology applications. The goal is to develop miniaturized, frequency- and power-stable beam sources that can also be used outside laboratories. These core technologies are being customized to meet the requirements of specific applications in quantum sensor technology and quantum imaging.

Site acceptance test of the MESA cryomodule
Site acceptance test of the MESA cryomodule

Mainz Energy-Recovering Superconducting Accelerator

In April 2019 the first cryomodule for the MESA-accelerator was successfully tested at HIM. More than 100.000 liters of liquid Helium were needed to cool the internal cavity-structures to minus 271 degrees Celsius during the test. All specifications required for MESA operation were met. The cavities create  large huge electrical potentials at low losses, which will enable to boost MESA beam energy by 25 Mega-electronvolt for each pass through the cavity.

At MESA, we explore the physics opportunities offered by using the recently established Energy-Recovery-Linac (ERL) accelerator technology, which enables very high electron-beam luminosities on internal targets at low energies.
Detailed information on the MESA-experiments.

LUMI-TDR for PANDA Experiment accepted
LUMI-TDR for PANDA Experiment accepted

The technical design report (TDR) of the luminosity detector for the PANDA experiment has recently been accepted by FAIR after a successful review by experts.

The luminosity detector will measure elastically scattered anti-protons at small polar angles and will consist of four layers of HV-MAPS, which is an innovative technology for pixel detectors.
For the operation at PANDA, the HV-MAPS sensors need to be operated in the vacuum of the HESR beamline, which comes with a number of technological challenges, especially regarding the cooling of the sensors.

Highlight-Publications
Upcoming Events
Sep, 14.&15.: Mainz Science Market

The Science Market is a science fair, where research institutes present their work to the general public.

Sep, 18.-20.: Greenhorn Meeting 2019

The Greenhorn Meeting is an annual conference for young scientists working on atomic physics, quantum optics, ultra-cold gases, and related topics.

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