Pfeiffer Vacuum GmbH and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH present joint doctoral candidate award

Award for doctoral research on high-precision measurement

of magnetic moment of proton

Vacuum indispensable for scientific investigations

For the second time, Pfeiffer Vacuum and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research) have jointly presented a doctoral candidate award. The recipient is Dr. Andreas Mooser who received the award for his dissertation on the high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of a proton. Pfeiffer Vacuum funds the prize which is awarded annually. The GSI scientific director, Professor Karlheinz Langanke, and Dr. Ulrich von Hülsen, a member of Pfeiffer Vacuum GmbH management, presented the € 1,000 award as part of the GSI colloquium on November 10, 2015.

For his dissertation, Dr. Mooser and his colleagues kept a single proton at minus 268 degrees Celsius for 13 months in order to measure the magnetic moment of the proton. This was made possible by high-precision equipment known as the Double Penning trap. Dr. Mooser developed this ultra-sensitive vacuum-isolated apparatus at the University of Mainz together with scientists from GSI, the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and the Japanese RIKEN research institute. “This enabled us to detect single spin quantum jumps of the proton”, explained Dr. Mooser.

“The magnetic moment of the proton is particularly interesting for solving the puzzle

of antimatter in the universe. Close comparison of the magnetic moments of

antiprotons and protons can shed some light on why matter and antimatter did not

completely annihilate each other after the Big Bang, and why there was a surplus of matter left from which our universe emerged.” Recent experiments conducted by the BASE collaboration at CERN, of which Dr. Mooser is meanwhile a member, showed that both charge-to-mass ratios are equal in magnitude.

“I feel honored and extremely gratified that my work has been singled out for the GSI doctoral award”, said Dr. Mooser, who wrote his dissertation at the University of

Mainz, the Helmholtz Institute Mainz and GSI. “Measuring the magnetic moment of

the proton paves the way for future research into missing antimatter in the universe.”

Pfeiffer Vacuum and the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung have

been linked through a partnership for many years. Vacuum solutions from Pfeiffer

Vacuum have been successfully utilized there for decades.

Dr. Ulrich von Hülsen, member of Pfeiffer Vacuum management, congratulated the

laureate: "It is immensely important to Pfeiffer Vacuum to foster new talent in cuttingedge

research. Pfeiffer Vacuum has been setting standards in vacuum technology for

125 years. The company was built on a pioneering spirit and passion which has led it to successfully contribute to technological progress in industry and science from the very beginning.”

"The outstanding research opportunities at the GSI accelerator and the development of the future FAIR accelerator attract many young researchers from around the world to GSI," said GSI scientific director, Professor Karlheinz Langanke. "They contribute important innovative ideas to the development of the new accelerators and detectors."

Eligible students had to have earned their doctorate in 2014 and have been

sponsored by GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung as part of its

strategic partnerships with the universities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Giessen,

Heidelberg, Jena and Mainz or through the R&D program. There are currently over

300 doctoral candidates working on their dissertations at GSI and FAIR within the

scope of the graduate school HGS-HIRe (Helmholtz Graduate School for Hadron and Ion Research).