In her ERC Starting Grant project, “PiCo—Towards constraining the Pillars of our Cosmological model using combined probes”, Assistant Professor Andrina Nicola from the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn will be exploring two fundamental questions of modern physics: What mechanism gave rise to the primordial fluctuations seeding all the structures seen in the Universe today? And what is the cause of the Universe’s late-time accelerated expansion?

Thousands of light particles can merge into a type of “super photon” under certain conditions. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to use “tiny nano molds” to influence the design of this so-called Bose-Einstein condensate. This enables them to shape the speck of light into a simple lattice structure consisting of four points of light arranged in quadratic form. Such structures could potentially be used in the future to make the exchange of information between multiple participants tap-proof. The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Professor Claude Duhr is the speaker for a new Research Unit for particle physics which DFG will be funding over the next four years. From the Physikalisches Institut, Priv.-Doz. Dr. Florian Loebbert  and Prof. Dr. Albrecht Klemm are also Principal Investigators in the new project.

How can a structure hold together if its individual components are actually repelling one another? An international research team has now demonstrated one example of such a highly excited exotic quantum state of matter. Researchers from the University of Bonn played a major role in the study. The findings have now been published in the journal “Nature.” 

The international Belle II collaboration has elected Florian Bernlochner, Professor at the Physikalisches Institut of University of Bonn, as its next spokesperson. This role is of central importance to the collaboration. Starting in the summer of 2025, under his leadership, Belle II will prepare for an upgrade and collect data at unprecedented collision rates. Belle II plays a key role in the planned Excellence Cluster "Color meets Flavor".

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.