Information
Graduate Education
  • Website of the Multimessenger School
    The International Helmholtz-Weizmann Research School on Multimessenger Astronomy provides a world-class international training and education environment.
External Support

Young Investigators Groups

Quicklinks

With the Helmholtz Young Investigators Groups, the Helmholtz Association fosters the early academic independence of its young researchers and offers them secure career prospects. The programme increases the appeal of the Helmholtz centres among aspiring scientists all over the world.

Young Investigators Groups in the astroparticle physics

  • Identifying the sources of high-energy neutrinos with multi-messenger observations (2017-2022)
    Young Investigators Group Leader:     Dr. Anna Franckowiak
    Research Field: The group aims for the identification of the sources of high-energy neutrino detected by the IceCube neutrino Observatory. The first detection of a flux of high-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin opens a new window to the high-energy Universe. However, no siginificant cluster of neutrinos in space or time could be identified and the most pressing question in the young field of neutrino astronomy is: What are the sources of the observed neutrinos and what are the astrophysical processes within the sources that produce these neutrinos? The group's goal is to probe transient neutrino source classes, including supernovae and tidal disruption events, in dedicated multi-messenger campaigns. The group members work with the optical survey instruments ASAS-SN and ZTF as well as the gamma-ray space telescope Fermi.
    University Partner: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • Opening a New Window on Physics Beyond the Standard Model Using the Cherenkov Telescope Array (2017-2022)
    Young Investigators Group Leader:     Dr. Elisa Pueschel
    Research Field: The group is searching for the signs of new particles produced in astrophysical processes, using the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) new gamma-ray observatory. Energies greater than those produced at man-made accelerators are achieved in astrophysical environments. The Cherenkov Telescope Array will be sensitive to extremely energetic gamma rays, which could provide information about the decay or annihilation of new, heavy particles that have not been detected in particle accelerators. This would shed light on the nature of dark matter, which astrophysical observations suggest is five times more abundant in the universe than the matter we are familiar with and whose nature is so far unknown. In addition, such signals could provide clues for potential extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics.
    University Partner: Universität Potsdam
  • Towards the Next-Generation Gamma-Ray Observatory: Astrophysics with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (2010-2015)
    Young Investigators Group Leader:     Dr. Gernot Maier
    Research Field: Understand particle acceleration in astrophysical jets, search for dark-matter particles in the Universe, the Cherenkov Telescope Array
    University Partner: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • Multi-messenger study of point sources of cosmic rays using data from IceCube (2006-2011)
    Young Investigators Group Leader:     Dr. Elisa Bernardini
    Research Field: Structure of Matter/ DESY
    University Partner: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

    •