Cluster Awards Promotional Theses (copy 1)

For the third time, the Exellence Cluster Universe has awarded two outstanding dissertations in the field of astro-, nuclear and particle physics. The “Universe Awards” were given to Dr. Jens Jasche from the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics and to Dr. Thomas Krühler from the Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial Physics. The prize is worth 4,000 Euros and is endowed to a dissertation in the categories “experiment” and “theory”, respectively. Although the quality of promotional theses presented was very high, the committee could identify two clear winners for the year 2010. Both scientists will present their dissertions at this Universe Cluster’s Science Week from 11-14 October 2010.

The winner in the category "theory" is Jens Jasche who was awarded for his dissertation “Bayesian Methods for Analyzing the Large Scale Structure of the Universe“. In his work, he developed innovative statistical methods allowing to use the distribution of galaxies in the cosmos to draw conclusions on the density distribution of matter in the early Universe. To today’s knowledge tiny quantum fluctuations occurring during the inflation phase shortly after the big bang are the reason for the web-like dispersion of galaxies observed today. Jens Jasche used methods of Bayesian statistics introducing two new mathematical algorithms for the reconstruction of the large scale density distribution and the power spectrum of density fluctuations. In his laudatio, comitee member Prof. Dr. Peter Ring emphasized that the methods developed by Jens Jasche “set a new standard for the analysis of galaxy catalogues.” He concluded, that Jasche's work had blazed the trail for future analyses using this kind of data-sets.

Thomas Krühler was awarded for his experimental work on “Advanced Photometric Studies of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows”. In his dissertation he investigated the afterglows of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). These extremely bright objects are intensively studied by astromers, as they can be observed in the early Universe thus giving insights into the first generations of stars.The laudatio of Prof. Dr. Klaus Schreckenbach praises Thomas Krühler’s thesis for the “comprehensive insight into the phenomena and current interpretations of the GRBs“. Starting in his diploma work Krühler participated in the development and commissioning of the GROND detector at the La Silla observatory in Chile. While working on his dissertation Thomas Krühler spent several months at the observatory and developed new routines to evaluate the afterglow. Klaus Schreckenbach summarizes: „The jury was impressed by the variety and quality of the work and unanimously accords the prize to Thomas Krühler”.