Thousands of particles of light can merge into a type of “super photon” under suitable conditions. Physicists call such a state a photon Bose-Einstein condensate. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now shown that this exotic quantum state obeys a fundamental theorem of physics. This finding now allows one to measure properties of photon Bose-Einstein condensates which are usually difficult to access. The study has been published in the journal “Nature Communications.”

As part of its efforts to strengthen top-level research, the German Research Foundation (DFG) funds a number of consortia known as Collaborative Research Centers (CRCs), some of which are implemented by several universities working together."OSCAR" will also continue to receive funding.

Dr. Julian Schmitt from the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn has been presented with the Industrie-Club Düsseldorf’s Science Award for 2024 in recognition of his outstanding work studying quantum gases of photons. The accolade is worth €20,000.

Strongly interacting systems play an important role in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. Stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulations are a proven method for investigating such systems. However, these methods reach their limits when so-called sign oscillations occur. This problem has now been solved by an international team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, the USA, China, South Korea and France using the new method of wavefunction matching. As an example, the masses and radii of all nuclei up to mass number 50 were calculated using this method. The results agree with the measurements, the researchers now report in the journal “Nature”.

Today, the Euclid Consortium publishes the first scientific publications on observations with the Euclid space telescope. In a first early observation phase, some scientifically spectacular results have already been achieved. These give a glimpse of the unprecedented capabilities of the telescope, which is expected to produce over the next few years one of the most accurate maps of the evolution of our Universe. All fifteen publications will be available on the arXiv preprint server from tomorrow on. Once the peer review process is complete, they will also appear in a special issue of the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics.”

The new research group of Matthias Schott works on questions of experimental particle physics, in particular on precision measurements of electroweak gauge bosons, studies of non-perturbative effects of QCD, and the search for axion-like particles.

Since more than a decade it has been possible for physicists to accurately measure the location of individual atoms to a precision of smaller than one thousandth of a millimeter using a special type of microscope. However, this method has so far only provided the x and y coordinates. Information on the vertical position of the atom – i.e., the distance between the atom and the microscope objective – is lacking. A new method has now been developed that can determine all three spatial coordinates of an atom with one single image. This method – developed by the University of Bonn and University of Bristol – is based on an ingenious physical principle. The study was recently published in the specialist journal Physical Review A.

Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, has visited the electron accelerator "ELSA" on the Poppelsdorf campus of the University of Bonn. The large-scale device has been reliably delivering the latest findings for research into the building blocks of matter for over three decades. It is part of a 70-year tradition of Nobel Prize-winning accelerator research at the University of Bonn.