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ePaper created 2014-12-22, 09:34:33 | version 1.34.00
Energy I Earth and Environment I Health I Aeronautics, Space and Transport I Key Technologies I Structure of Matter research facilities, universities and Max Planck institutes. These collaborations are also providing researchers with access to unique large-scale facilities and infrastructure, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, which is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the GSI accelerator complex, and numerous large-scale detectors, underground laboratories and observatories that allow them to look deep into the cosmos. From Matter to Materials and Life In this programme, researchers use state-of-the-art radiation sources to investigate the structures, dynamic processes and functions of matter and materials. Their work involves close collaboration with universities and industry. Research emphases include transitional states in solids, molecules and biological systems, complex matter, tailored intelligent functions, transport systems, information technologies and Data are collected by the IceCube detector in this Ant- arctic station (left) and are fil- tered and pre-evaluated there due to the facility’s restricted transmission capacity. To the right, a high energy neutrino event is represented in a 3D graphic. Image: IceCube/NSF IceCube, the world’s largest particle detector, has been collecting data since its completion in 2010. The results of this initial phase of operation suggest that this research is opening up a new branch of astronomy. IceCube consists of over 5000 highly sensitive light detec- tors, which scientists spent six years installing at depths of up to 2.5 kilometres in one cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice. These sensors measure the extremely weak flashes of light produced by the very rare collisions of neutrinos with the ice. The goal of this experiment is to use the nearly mass-less neutrinos as unique messengers to detect high-energy events in the universe such as supernova explosions or other cosmic particle accelerators. Between May 2010 and May 2013, researchers detected a total of 37 neutrinos from deep in the cosmos with energies exceeding 30 tera-electron volts (TeV). They included three with an energy of more than 1000 TeV. In December 2013, the highest-energy neutrino ever recorded in an experiment flew into the IceCube detector. Registering an almost uni- maginable 2 peta-electron volts (2000 TeV), this single ICECUBE DETECTS HIGH-ENERGY NEUTRINOS FROM THE COSMOS elementary particle had more than 300 times the energy of the protons that, from 2015 onwards, will smash into each other at almost the speed of light in the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. “These measurements are the first indications of extremely high-energy neutrinos coming from beyond our solar system and proof of the enormously energy-rich processes in the cosmos. We are currently witnessing the birth of neutrino astronomy,” says Markus Ackermann, leader of the DESY research group participating in the IceCube project. A quarter of IceCube’s sensors, or optical modules, were assembled and tested at DESY, and a significant part of the receiver electronics on the surface of the ice also come from Germany. As yet, not enough high-energy events have been registered to provide evidence of clustering in time or space that could point to a particular cosmic source. However, as the number of recorded events increases over the coming years, scien- tists hope to be able to identify individual sources of high- energy neutrinos in the cosmos. Further examples from this research field g Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY 35