LOEWE Top Professorship for nuclear physicist Achim Schwenk
State of Hesse supports research work with 1.9 million euros
2023/09/04
The TU Darmstadt has been awarded another LOEWE Top Professorship: it goes to astro- and nuclear physicist Achim Schwenk, who has been researching and teaching at the university's Department of Physics since 2009. For his research on forces in atomic nuclei and neutron stars, the LOEWE research funding line of the state of Hesse provides around 1.9 million euros over a period of five years.
“The fact that with the LOEWE professorship for Achim Schwenk we are able to retain an internationally renowned expert in astrophysical and nuclear physics fundamental research in Hesse shows the effectiveness of our research funding programme. We are thus making a significant contribution to securing and further developing the excellent research in this field that has been built up for years at TU Darmstadt,” explained Science Minister Angela Dorn.
“Professor Schwenk is researching what holds the world together at its core: Which particles and interactions are involved in stars and in atomic nuclei? He is one of the most cited researchers in this fascinating, interdisciplinary field of research and is an important multiplier,” Ms. Dorn said.
“I am very pleased that we were able to make Achim Schwenk a very attractive offer to stay thanks to the award of a LOEWE Top Professorship,” said Professor Tanja Brühl, President of TU Darmstadt. “As an excellent theoretical nuclear physicist, Achim Schwenk will continue to teach and conduct research at TU Darmstadt, advance collaborative research projects in physics and also provide significant impetus as spokesperson for our research field Matter and Materials. It is also an important sign for our Research Cluster ELEMENTS.” In May 2023, ELEMENTS researchers have submitted a draft proposal for the upcoming round of the German federal and state governments’ Excellence Strategy.
Matter in atomic nuclei and neutron stars
Professor Schwenk's LOEWE Top Professorship deals with matter in atomic nuclei and neutron stars described by the Strong Interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. The research team is particularly interested in neutron stars and supernovae, ultracold atoms and the physics of the search for dark matter. However, the same forces also hold atomic nuclei together.
The LOEWE funding will be used to develop innovative calculations of neutron-rich nuclei, which play a key role in the formation of heavy elements in the universe. Approaches from quantum information will be used to simulate the complex structures more efficiently. Schwenk's research project “Exploring the Universe through Strong Interactions” (EUSTRONG) is currently being funded with a grant from the European Research Council ERC of around 2.3 million euros for five years; this is already the second ERC grant for the researcher.
Professor Achim Schwenk
Achim Schwenk studied physics in Heidelberg before receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to go to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he obtained his Ph.D. with Gerald Brown in 2002. His research focuses on strongly interacting many-body systems in nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. Since 2009, he is W3 professor at the TU Darmstadt and at the ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI. Since 2015, he has also been a Max Planck Fellow at the MPI for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, where he heads the research group “Strong Interactions and Exotic Nuclei”.
LOEWE Top Professorships
LOEWE Top Professorships are directed towards excellent, internationally recognised researchers who can receive between 1.5 and three million euros for five years. In 2021, Professor Iryna Gurevych from the field of “Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing” at the Department of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt was the first in Hesse to receive this funding. Two further LOEWE Top Professorships were established in 2023 for Professor Marcus Rohrbach and Professor Mira Mezini from the Department of Computer Science.
LOEWE Start Professorships can be used to support excellent scientists at an early stage of their career, who are to be attracted to Hessen as a science location or retained here with an endowment of up to two million euros for a period of six years. At TU Darmstadt, Timo Richarz from the Department of Mathematics and Anna Rohrbach from the Department of Computer Science hold such professorships.
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