The annual meeting of DDAp/DDEIT and HIRSAP took place on November 21 and 22. The doctoral students met at UNSAM in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and each gave a short presentation on their work. In addition to the PIs, some external participants were also present: Dr. Rodrigo Diaz (ICAS-UNSAM) spoke about"Discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets boosted by machine learning algorithms" and Dr. Ana Martina Botti (FNAL), DDAp alumna, spoke about"Dark matter detection beyond the WIMP: pushing the sensitivites with skipper-CCDs".

It was a special pleasure to welcome the new director of the Centro Universitario Argentino Alemán (CUAA), Lic. Hebe Leyendecker, and her team, Clementina Caverzaghi Claas and Matías Pérez, on November 22. DAHZ and CUAA sponsor the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp).

https://indico.ahuekna.org.ar/event/646/

On November 14, 2022, the celebration of the 10th anniversary of DAHZ / CUAA took place together with a network meeting at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires.

The President of KIT, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hanselka, presented KIT and the three double degree programs supported by DAHZ / CUAA and Dr. Alvaro Taboada Nuñez reported as an alumnus about his experiences in the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp).

On November 10-11, 2022, the annual PhD workshop of DDAp/DDEIT and HIRSAP was held. The PhD students met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and each presented their work in a short talk. In addition to the PIs, two external speakers were also present: Dr. Martin Makler (ICAS-UNSAM) spoke on "A glance at cosmology through gravitational lenses" and Prof. Luis Raul Abramo (IF/USP) lectured about "Machine learning and advanced statistical methods in cosmology".

The workshop was held at UNSAM (Universidad Nacional de San Martín) and was the first face-to-face workshop for some of the PhD students after an online workshop in 2020 and a hybrid workshop in 2021. Everybody enjoyed very much to meet each other in person!

indico.ahuekna.org.ar/event/430

KIT Distinguished Senior Fellow Prof. Thomas Müller of the Institute of Experimental Particle Physics gave a series of lectures on "Introduction to Collider Physics" at UNSAM in Buenos Aires from November 7-9, 2022, as part of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) between KIT and UNSAM.

The week before, he gave a similar lecture at Centro Atómico Bariloche (CNEA), complemented by a colloquium entitled "Our Search for the Origin of the Universe".

Both events could take place again in the presence of all interested people after the long pandemic, which was extraordinarily motivating for the participants.

Acceleration and Propagation of Cosmic Rays in High-Metallicity Astrophysical Environments is the title of the PhD thesis of Dr. Ana Laura Müller, former PhD student at KIT and at the Argentinian Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp). It was nominated as an outstanding PhD thesis by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and was now published by Springer as part of the book series Springer Theses.

Dr. Ana Laura Müller received her Licentiate degree in Astronomy from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP). Afterwards, she started her doctoral research focusing on the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gustavo E. Romero and Prof. Dr. Dr. Johannes Blümer, as well as the advice of Dr. Markus Roth. She graduated from the double degree program DDAp, offered jointly by KIT and UNSAM. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Prague on a project led by Dr. Anabella Araudo to investigate the production of cosmic rays in jets of active galactic nuclei.

From september 7 to 16 2022, Dr. Diego Ravignani (ITeDA, Argentina) came to IAP to give a seminar with the title "Fitting data with the likelihood method" for DDAp students.

The analysis of the data generated in scientific experiments increasingly requires the mastering of advanced statistical tools. This course showed how to fit data using the likelihood method. It provided both the theoretical foundations and also practical examples that allow to tackle real-life data analysis problems.

From December 7 to 10, 2021 we offered a lecture series at KIT on Cosmic Rays at the Highest Energies by Dr. Ingomar Allekotte from Centro Atómico Bariloche, Argentina. The lecture series was part of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics between KIT and UNSAM.

The HIRSAP Workshop is the main meeting of the graduate school and takes place annually. It is the meeting where all doctoral students and principal invesigators meet each other with a lively exchange.

This year’s meeting took place on November 2 – 3, 2021 as a hybrid meeting. Half of the participants met at KIT in Karlsruhe, Germany, the other half joined the meeting virtually.

The doctoral students presented their work and their progress and discussed latest results with colleagues and supervisors. Invited speakers presented lastet results from astroparticle physics and related topics.

https://indico.scc.kit.edu/event/2498/

We are very pleased that the follow-up proposal for the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) has been selected for funding. The 2nd funding phase by DAHZ/CUAA will start on January 1, 2023 and end on December 31, 2026.

The main meeting of the graduate school HIRSAP is its annual workshop where all doctoral students – participating in the DDAp and DDEIT - and principal investigators meet each other. Doctoral students present their work and discuss latest results with colleagues and supervisors. With a lively exchange this event contributes significantly to the development of a corporate identity within the school.

The third annual workshop took place on November 25 – 27, 2020 as virtual event. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the participants could not meet in person, but nevertheless the meeting was very successful. The doctoral researchers from the partner institutes in Argentina and Germany presented their latest insights in the field of astroparticle physics within a wide range of topics extending from the development of new detection technologies up to powerful analyses methods in high-energy astroparticle physics. Invited speakers gave talks on recent findings in cosmic-ray anisotropies and the investigation of the microwave radiation of the primordial Universe with bolometric interferometry. In addition to the scientific discussions, casual meetings were held with a web tool which allows chatting and interacting in a virtual room during the breaks.

https://indico.ahuekna.org.ar/event/123/

On 7 and 8 November 2019 the 2nd Network Meeting of the Centro Universitario Argentino-Alemán (CUAA-DAHZ) took place in Buenos Aires.

During this event Prof. Alberto Etchegoyen (ITeDA, UNSAM) and Marie-Christine Mundt (B5) presented the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) and Dr. David Schmidt (IKP) and Johannes Hulsman (ITeDA) reported on their experiences in the double doctoral program.

Three of the young participants gave short interviews published on the Twitter account of the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, Ciencia y Tecnología (Spanish):

Flavia Gesualdi
David Schmidt
Johannes Hulsman

On 17 and 18 October 2019, KIT hosted the kick-off event for new German-Argentinean courses of study. Dr. David Schmidt (IKP) and Marie-Christine Mundt (B5) reported on their experiences in the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp).

Please find further information here.

From October 28 to 31, 2019 Andreas Haungs, Group leader CR Technologies (IKP), gave a series of lectures on Galactic Cosmic Rays at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This lecture was part of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) between KIT and UNSAM.

The radio upgrade , which is part of the AugerPrime upgrade, is a very important part of the future research of the Pierre Auger Observatory by adding array-based composition sensitivity for large zenith angles, for which the scintillator upgrade is not effective.

Having good composition-sensitive information up to very large zenith angles is crucial for composition-improved anisotropy studies and adds to the overall aperture of the observatory.

From January 14 to 17, 2019 we offered a series of DDAp lectures on Exploring the inflation era with CMB Polarization with our guest scientist Dr. Jean-Christophe Hamilton (Astroparticule et Cosmologie - IN2P3 - CNRS, Université Paris).

The lectures were part of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) between KIT and UNSAM.

Abstract:

The CMB radiation is an amazing observable that nature offered to cosmologists throughout the Universe. Observed from here and now, its temperature and polarization anisotropies reveal the geometry of the Universe through which the radiation has travelled for 13.6 billion years and therefore allows to put tight constraints on cosmological parameters. Furthermore, specific features in the temperature and even more in the polarisation patterns are directly related to events that happened in the very primordial Universe.

Specifically, polarization B-modes are expected to be produced by primordial gravitational waves, themselves predicted by the inflationary theory. Their detection would not only strongly support inflation as the origin of the fluctuations in the Universe, but also allow to understand the physics of the inflation era.

In order to observe these B-modes a lot of experimental efforts are ongoing throughout the world with various instrumental designs optimized for various important observational aspects. The main challenges to be addressed in order to detect these B-modes are the weakness of the signal itself, the instrumental and analysis systematic effects that may bias the polarization measurement and induce a mixing between the strong E and the weak B-modes and of course the presence of strong polarized foregrounds such as dust polarized emission and lensing-induced B-mode signal.

On 20 November 2018, the inauguration of the Helmholtz International Research School for Astroparticle Physics and Enabling Technologies (HIRSAP) took place at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires. At Campus Miguelete, guests and representatives of the two participating universities UNSAM and KIT came together to officially start off the graduate school in a festive event.

From Germany Dr. Ilja Bohnet (Research Fellow Matter of the Helmholtz Association), Prof. Thomas Hirth (Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs at KIT), Prof. Johannes Blümer (Head of Division 5 at KIT), Prof. Ralph Engel (Spokesperson of HIRSAP at KIT), and scientists from KIT participated in the event.

From Argentina the participants were Jorge Tezón (Manager of Scientific and Technological Development at CONICET), Prof. Carlos Greco (Rector of UNSAM), Prof. Alberto Carlos Frasch (Vice Rector of UNSAM), Prof. Alberto Etchegoyen (Spokesperson of HIRSAP at UNSAM/ITeDA) and scientists from UNSAM.

The first PhD students of the school were also on site to present themselves and their research topics in a PhD workshop. In this way, all participants were given the opportunity to gain an overview of the diversity and complementarity of the topics of the doctoral theses and to get to know the doctoral students better.

On the German side, the opening ceremony of the HIRSAP already took place in April 2018 at KIT.

From November 22 to 27, 2018 Guido Drexlin, Professor at the Institute of Experimental Particle Physics (ETP), gave a series of lectures on Introduction to Neutrinos and Dark Matter at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was part of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) between KIT and UNSAM.

On April 17, 2018 the first kick-off event for the Helmholtz International Research School for Astroparticle Physics and Enabling Technologies (HIRSAP) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires (Argentina) took place at KIT.

It started with welcome talks by KIT Vice President Research Prof. Oliver Kraft and by UNSAM Vice Rector Prof. Alberto Carlos Frasch followed by introductory talks by the KIT head of division 5, Prof. Johannes Blümer, by Spokesperson of HIRSAP at KIT Prof. Ralph Engel, and by Spokesperson of HIRSAP at UNSAM/ITeDA Prof. Alberto Etchegoyen from Argentina. Two PhD students of the existing program Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp), Isabel Astrid Goos (CNEA/IB, Bariloche), and David Schmidt (KIT), presented some special insights in their impressions and experiences in the cotutelle program. Finally the keynote speaker Dr. Walter Winter from DESY gave a very interesting talk on “Multi-Messenger Astroparticle Physics”.

More information about the event at KIT

Presse Release of the Helmholtz Association

From November 2 – 10, 2017 we offered a KSETA course with our guest scientists Prof. Dr. Ricardo Piegaia and Dr. Dario Rodrigues from CONICET/UBA/UNSAM in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Thes course offered a practical approach to those principles and practices of statistics that are most relevant for data analysis in particle and astroparticle physics. The lectures covered parameter estimation, confidence intervals and limits, profile likelihoods, statistical tests for goodness-of-fit, application of hypothesis testing to searches for new phenomena, treatment of systematic uncertainties, and a critical discussion and comparison between the frequentist and the Bayesian approaches to these subjects. Throughout, real-world examples were used to illustrate the practical application of the ideas.

Each session consisted of a 1-hour lecture followed by one hour of practical computing, with exercises based on that day's lecture. In order to follow the hands-on sessions, participants needed to bring their own laptops and have a basic prior knowledge of ROOT and C++. No previous experience with more recent ROOT-based statistics tools like RooFit and RooStats was assumed.

This course was part of the Double Doctoral Degree in Astrophysics between UNSAM and KIT.

We offered two very interesting KSETA courses with Prof. Gustavo E. Romero (CONICET/UNLP/UNSAM, Buenos Aires, Argentina, KSETA guest scientist):

• Scientific Philosophy
  October 4 – 6, 2017, More information
   
• Particle acceleration in astrophysics
  October 9 – 13, 2017, More information

Both lectures were part of the Double Doctoral Degree in Astrophysics between UNSAM and KIT.

In October 2017, Ralph Engel, astroparticle physicist from the Institute of Nuclear Physics and member of KCETA and the Pierre Auger Collaboration, gave a two-week lecture series on High-energy Astroparticle Physics at the Universidad Nacional de San Martin (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The lectures were part of the double doctoral program DDAp between KIT and UNSAM.

In August 2017, Ulrich Husemann, Professor of Experimental Particle Physics and KCETA member, gave a two-week lecture series on Detectors for Particle and Astroparticle Physics at the Universidad Nacional de San Martin (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The series was part of the double doctoral program DDAp between KIT and UNSAM.

On 8 June 2017, as part of Chancellor Angela Merkel's trip to Argentina, an exchange took place with students and young scientists in Buenos Aires on the subject of cooperation. Doctoral students from the Double Doctoral Degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) also took part in this dialogue.

Dr. Silvia Mollerach (CONICET, Centro Atómico Bariloche, and Universidad Nacional de San Martín, UNSAM, Argentina)  gave a KSETA Seminar on Statistical Methods for Astroparticle Physics from September 26 - 30, 2016.

The course covered different statistical methods used to analyse data in astroparticle physics, including the simulation and comparison of measurements to theoretical models.

Some basic statistical topics like the concept of probabilities, probability distributions, the calculation of expectation values and higher moments, and the determination of uncertainties as well as correlations were reviewed.

More advanced topics relevant to data analyses and statistical inference were discussed. Among these were fitting appropriate models to data, estimating the goodness of fit, testing hypotheses and the construction of confidence intervals. This also included a discussion of the look-elsewhere-effect and the cosmic variance.

To better explore these topics, the study of anisotropies in the cosmic rays distribution was used as examples, including large scale anisotropies, clustering studies, and correlation with possible source populations.

This seminar was part of the KSETA Topical Courses as well as of the Double Doctoral Degree in Astrophysics between UNSAM and KIT.

Prof. Esteban Roulet (CONICET, Centro Atómico Bariloche, and Universidad Nacional de San Martín, UNSAM, Argentina) gave a KSETA Seminar on Neutrino Astrophysics from July 4 – 15, 2016.

The following topics were covered in his lectures:

• Neutrinos: from the Fermi theory to the Standard Model
• Neutrino interactions and detection techniques
• Neutrino masses and oscillations
• Geoneutrinos, Solar neutrinos, Supernova neutrinos, Atmospheric neutrinos
• High energy astrophysical neutrinos. Galactic and extragalactic sources. Icecube results.
• Cosmogenic neutrinos.
• Neutrinos and cosmology: relic neutrinos, nucleosynthesis and neutrinos. Leptogenesis.

This seminar was part of the Double Doctoral Degree in Astrophysics between UNSAM and KIT.

On September 1, 2015 the inauguration of the Double Doctoral degree in Astrophysics (DDAp) took place at KIT. It started with welcome talks by KIT Vice President Prof. D. Löhe and by UNSAM Rector Prof. C. Ruta, followed by talks of the coordinators of the DDAp, Prof. J. Blümer (Head of IKP, KIT) and Prof. A. Etchegoyen (Head of ITeDA, Buenos Aires). The symposium ended with a key lecture by Prof. A. Watson (The University of Leeds), one of the founding fathers of the Pierre Auger Observatory.

On the Argentinian side, the festivities already took place on May 11, 2015 at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM).