30.10.2013

Association of the Friends and Sponsors of DESY awards best PhD thesis

The Association of the Friends and Sponsors of DESY is sharing its 2013 award for best PhD thesis in two equal parts between Johannes Hauk and Andrej Singer. The association awards this prize every year to the best thesis from the two previous university terms. The award ceremony took place today in conjunction with the Jentschke lecture in Hamburg.

Johannes Hauk and Andrej Singer

Particle physicist Johannes Hauk from Buchen, Odenwald, graduated from the University of Hamburg with work done for the CMS group at DESY. In his PhD thesis, “Measurement of Associated Z⁰-Boson and b-Jet Production in Proton-Proton Collisions with the CMS experiment“, done in the same group, he presented scientifically outstanding contributions to particle physics in three separate fields. His main results produce important insight into the relationship of so-called electroweak processes (Z⁰production) with processes involving heavy quarks (b quark jets) within the theory of quantum chromo-dynamics and how these relationships could be used for analyses involving Higgs pair production. He also did pioneering work for using Z⁰ production in particle collisions as a reference process for the determination of the top cross section. Finally, Hauk produces an original and important technical contribution to the calibration of track reconstruction in the CMS tracker. All three results have been published as CMS papers.

Andrej Singer gained his degree in physics at the University of Münster in cooperation with DESY at the free-electron laser FLASH. In 2007 and 2008 he has received grants from the German National Academic Foundation. He then did his PhD at DESY in photon science. In his thesis called “Coherence properties of third and fourth generation X-ray sources – Theory and experiment“, he studied coherence and statistical properties of radiation at the new X-ray sources like the highly brilliant storage-ring source PETRA III or the newly developed free-electron lasers FLASH at DESY and LCLS at SLAC, US. Andrej Singer performed detailed theoretical studies of the transverse coherence properties based on the operating parameters of these sources. The main subject of his thesis was the analysis of experimental results made at FLASH and LCLS and their comparison with theoretical studies. His studies into coherence properties at LCLS in particular entered new scientific territory. He also managed to determine to coherence properties of FLASH in the soft X-ray range by way of intensity correlations after a procedure for the visible spectrum proposed by Hanbury, Brown and Twiss. These experiments will be of great importance for future use of free-electron laser in new thematic areas like quantum optics.