Freitag, 3. Juli 2026 17:00 Uhr KINDERKOLLOQUIUM: Wie macht man mit Zitronen Licht statt Limonade?
Belina von Krosigk, Universität Heidelberg
Belina von Krosigk, Universität Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. Laura Fabbietti, Technische Universität München Towards a complete QCD map of hadron interactions Prof. Dr. Laura Fabbietti Technische Universität München A new technique has been developed in recent years at the LHC to study the residual strong interaction among hadrons: femtoscopy for interactions. This technique leverages the high statistics pp collision data recorded at the LHC and the exquisite particle identification capabilities of the ALICE detector. In this talk we will discuss how femtoscopy for interactions allowed us to extract for the first time the scattering parameters of hadron pairs containing (nearly) any combination of u, d, s and c quarks, how the technique was extended to three-hadron systems with the goal of testing the sensitivity to nuclear three-body forces and how the very same method recently allowed us to directly observe the creation mechanism of anti-nuclei at the LHC. Femtoscopy for interactions opened a new research field at the LHC and its future perspectives will be presented.
Prof. Dr. Daniel Bemmerer, HZDR Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf
Yuan-Sen Ting , OSU The expansive, interdisciplinary nature of astronomy, combined with its open-access culture, makes it an ideal testing ground for exploring how Large Language Models (LLMs) can accelerate scientific discovery. Recent developments in LLM reasoning capabilities have shown substantial progress — our work demonstrates that AI agents can now achieve gold medal performance on International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) problems, indicating their growing analytical abilities. In this talk, I will present our recent advances in applying LLMs as agents to real-world astronomical challenges. We demonstrate how LLM agents can conduct end-to-end research tasks in galaxy spectral fitting — encompassing data analysis, strategy refinement, and knowledge accumulation — approaching capabilities similar to human intuition and domain knowledge, and extending to spectroscopic measurements that once took months of expert effort and to sifting hundreds of millions of light curves for rare systems. However, limitations remain. The Moravec paradox manifests clearly in astronomy: tasks requiring abstract reasoning may be easier for AI than seemingly simple perceptual tasks, and current models still struggle with chart reading, multi-modal data interpretation, and other fundamental astronomical workflows. To make large-scale applications viable, we developed lightweight, open-source specialized models (AstroSage) that match frontier models on astronomy Q&A at a fraction of the cost, evaluated against carefully curated astronomical benchmarks. Looking ahead, the path forward involves not just better models but a comprehensive ecosystem — rigorous benchmarks, literature-scale retrieval, and agent-ready tools. I will close by reflecting on what this transformation means for scientific understanding itself, and why understanding the universe remains a distinctly human project, even with non-human collaborators. To arrange a visit with the speaker during the visit, please contact their host: Hans-Walter Rix
Dr. Florian Meinert, 5th Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart Circular Rydberg Atoms for Quantum Simulation Dr. Florian Meinert 5th Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart Highly excited atoms named after Janne Rydberg have played an important role throughout the history of atomic physics. In recent years, their strong mutual interaction was key to realize quantum computers and simulators with individual atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays. Coherence times or gate fidelities reached on these devices are, however, fundamentally limited by the lifetime of the Rydberg electron. Orders of magnitude longer lived Rydberg states can be created by spinning up the electron as much as quantum mechanics allows for. Such circular Rydberg states have already led to Nobel-prize winning works on fundamentals of atom-light interaction. In our experiments, we generate, coherently control, and trap individual Strontium circular Rydberg atoms in optical tweezer arrays. Along this endeavor, we have recently gained access to giant trapped circular Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers up to n=103 and measured record lifetimes of more than 10 milliseconds. This is achieved via Purcell suppression of blackbody radiation at room temperature. Exploiting the second valence electron available in Strontium further allowed us to couple the circular Rydberg electron to inner shell excitations, which can be used for local optical control. These results now pave the way for quantum information processing and sensing utilizing the combination of extreme lifetimes and giant Rydberg blockade.
