Welcome!

Third Joint Helmholtz-Rosatom School for
young scientists at FAIR.

Report: Third International Helmholtz-Rosatom School on FAIR Physics 

From October 6-13, 2013 the Third International Helmholtz-Rosatom School on FAIR Physics took place in Hernossios, Crete. The school was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), the Helmholtz Graduate School for Hadron and Ion Research (HGS-HIRe for FAIR) and the FAIR Russia Research Center (FRRC). The BMBF support was realized via the BMBF-FSP 212 “NuSTAR.de” coordinated at TU Darmstadt.

The scope of the school was to bring together young scientists working on the physics of the Facility of Antiproton and Ion Research, especially from Russia and Germany. Here, the German side was represented by students from BMBF funded groups and students of HGS-HIRe for FAIR, the Russian side was represented mostly by students connected to the FRRC program funded by the Helmholtz Association and Rosatom.

Additionally four Polish students attended the Lecture Week. Indian students were invited, but unfortunately could not attend due to travel restrictions of Indian institutions. One Saudi-Arabian student could attend the lecture week, since he is doing his PhD studies within the HGS-HIRe Graduate School.

Group picture with the participants of the school.

The program covered all scientific pillars of the FAIR program, especially focussing on the large collaborations, i.e. APPA, CBM, NuSTAR and PANDA. Each topic was covered in one day, highlighting the experimental as well as the theoretical issues. Two additional days covered the accelerator complex itself and the IT infrastructure of FAIR. Given the

The day started with two lectures by internationally renowned experts. Due to the experience and the input from the HGS-HIRe program excellent lecturers could be found, who did not just use old presentations, but rather created presentations especially suited for the audience. This was especially important due to the audience with very diverse research backgrounds. Each topic was supported by one lecturer from the FRRC program, who gave insights into their research during a shorter afternoon lecture.

Students listening to the lectures.

The afternoon was then devoted to a prolonged discussion session and group work. Given the experience with previous lecture weeks it is quite hard to make sure that students from different countries get to know each other and discuss outside their usual peer group. Thus they were mixed up (by country, gender and research topic) to make sure they use the opportunity and build connections over the course of the week. During these group projects in the afternoon they worked on exercises and projects handed out by the lecturers of the day. Given the variety of scientific backgrounds some  students could handle the questions of the respective day better than others, however due to the mixing of the groups each group had the needed expertise to go through the exercises and projects. Since the topics changed during the week each student could contribute at some point of the week.

Two students working during the computer science project

The projects ranged from knowledge based questions, literature work, calculations to small programming projects and ensured a vital and stimulating learning environment.
The size of the groups was set to six to seven students, which has proven to be a good group size for such activities in previous courses in the HGS-HIRe schedule.

During the evening the answers of the different groups were collected and discussed with the lecturers of the day. Since the students were eager to present their results and asked much more questions than anticipated this session regularly ran overtime.

It should be noted that the resulting discussions were of a very high scientific level, which was noted by the lecturers at several occasions. Usually the discussions then went on over dinner.

Student working during the group work session 

In order to improve further lecture week the students were asked to evaluate the program afterwards. In an anonymous online survey the students were asked to rate the week according to four criteria: Impact of the course, Course content, Organization and Quality of the lectures. 

The possible answers were:

• Very Poor (1) 
• Poor (2)
• Fair (3)
• Good (4)
• Very Good (5)

Below the numerical answers of the online survey. Overall the students rated the lecture week to be excellent, which also can be seen in the comments which have been made.

Quotes from the online student survey:

“Very valuable course. Many new (international!) contacts, interesting lectures on a broad range of topics. Of course, crete was a very beautiful place for such a meeting.”

“The course, gave me an great overview on the FAIR topics and I learned a lot in this one week. It was great to get to know other physics regions more and to connect with all the other students and scientists. The crete facility was perfect to concentrate on the lectures and to do group activities.”

“I think the course has met its aim, to connect young scientists with each other and to give them some deeper knowledge about the FAIR project, so that we all understand what we are talking about. For my personal objectives I have to say, they were 100%ly met. I wanted to learn more about the physics behind the experiments, and thanks to some great lectures, i did.”

Lecturers answering the questions in the evening

“From my point of view, the communication plays the most important role in science. Everyone could interrupt the lecturer and ask him a question. Fruitful discussions and group works were the best aspects of this school.”

Lecturers discussing with students.

“Lectures were well-thought-out and competently presented. The casual atmosphere of lectures encouraged to ask questions and discuss. “

It should be noted that the Third  Helmholtz-Rosatom School was a huge success and led to many fruitful collaborations and connections between the students themselves and between the students and the lecturers. We believe that these kind of schools are an important aspect of a truly international PhD education. It is crucial to continue these events, however due to their large scale they are not possible to finance without additional funding from e.g. BMBF or Rosatom.

The directors of the school, Frankfurt am Main,

Sascha Vogel
Hans Gutbrod

 

The list below above the participating students and their home institutions alphabetically. Positions 53 - 67 (in bold) are lecturers and organisers.

1	Mohammed Almalki	University of Frankfurt, GSI
2	Bondarev Andrey	SPSU
3	Tugba Arici	University of Gießen, GSI
4	Ilia Ashanin	MEPhi
5	Sergej Belogurov	ITEP
6	Jacek Biernat	Jagiellonian University
7	Andrey Alexeevich Blinnikov	MEPhi
8	Anton Valentinovich Bogdanov	MEPhi
9	Andrey Chernogorov	ITEP
10	Irina Egorova	JINR
11	Nikita Elizarov	JINR
12	Martin Galsuka	University of Giessen
13	Tobias Gassner	University of Jena, GSI
14	Pradeep Ghosh	University of Frankfurt, GSI
15	Angel Givechev	University of Darmstadt, GSI
16	Dimitry Glazov	SPSU
17	Leonid Grigorenko	JINR
18	Szymon Harabasz	University of Darmstadt, GSI
19	Benjamin Hess	University of Tübingen
20	Dirk Hutter	FIAS
21	Lukasz Jablonski	Jan Kochanowski University
22	Anastasiya Andreevna Kalashnikova	MEPhi
23	Ekaterina Khabibullina	MEPhi
24	Denis Igorevich Kirillov	MEPhi
25	luliia Kliuchevskaia	MEPhi
26	Olesya Alexeevna Korchuganova	MEPhi
27	Darya Alexandrovna Kostileva	JINR
28	Benjamin Koubek	University of Frankfurt
29	Oleksandr Kovalenko	University of Heidelberg, GSI
30	Anton Andreevich Losev	MEPhi
31	Anton Alexeevich Lukyanchuk	MEPhi
32	Ilya Maltsev	SPSU
33	Mikhail Sergeevich Mironov	MEPhi
34	Dmitry Morozov	IHEP
35	Rafal Najman	Jagiellonian University
36	Andrey Orlov	ITEP
37	Ilya Vladimirovich Ovsyannikov	BMSTU
38	Vsevolod Alexeevich Panushkin	MEPhi
39	Dmitry Olegovich Ponkin	JINR
40	Sascha Reinecke	University of Wuppertal
41	Janet Schmidt	University of Frankfurt
42	Petr Shatunov	BINP
43	Vitaliy Nikolaevich Shetinin	BMSTU
44	Ilya Vyacheslavovich Shirikov	JINR
45	Alexey Sitnikov	ITEP
46	Erzhan Muratovich Suleymenov	MEPhi
47	Patricia Till	University of Frankfurt
48	Barbara Wasilewska	Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN
49	Marco Wiesel	University of Heidelberg, GSI
50	Vladimir Zaytsev	SPSU
51	Albina Ziiatdinova	MEPhi
52	Victoria Zinyuk	University of Heidelberg
53	Dima Anuchin	FRRC
54	Jochen Gerhard	FIAS
55	Alexandre Gumberidze	GSI, EMMI
56	Hans Gutbrod	FRRC
57	Andreas Heinz	Chalmers University
58	Beatrice Kaufeler	FAIR
59	Ivan Kisel	FIAS
60	Mariya Kosolapova	FRRC
61	Marc Pelizaeus	University of Bochum
62	Rüdiger Schmidt	CERN
63	Jens Stadlmann	GSI
64	Thomas Stöhlker	University of Jena, HI Jena
65	Christian Sturm	GSI
66	Sascha Vogel	HGS-HIRe
67	Marc Wagner	University of Frankfurt