Jobs and Theses

We are constantly looking for talented and motivated students and physicists to join our team, either for your Bachelor's or Master's thesis, as a technical or a PhD student. Sometimes there are also positions for Postdocs. Here is a non-exhaustive list of possible thesis topics. In case you already have your own idea, which fits in our research, do not hesitate to ask! Contact either Prof. Bernhard Ketzer or the contact person listed for the specific research topic.

Job offers

Thesis topics

Revision of a small-format Time Projection Chamber for lab course applications (Bachelor / Master / PHD)

A fully modular 3D-tracking detector with a readout volume of 10×10×10cm³ and an amplification stage based on gaseous electron multipliers (GEM) has been developed and built for various test purposes. A full setup of such a laboratory-size detector (small Time Projection Chamber, sTPC) already has been set up and tested. There exists an additional set of detector parts in order to assemble a second detector of the same type which is supposed to be used for an advanced laboratory course for future physics students.
In the scope of your work one sub-project could be to assemble and test the detector, partly under clean room conditions. Another task is to revise the readout electronics of the detector. Here, the existing readout chain needs to be replaced and adopted to the scope of a laboratory course. This has to be realized in terms of printed circuit board (PCB) design and the description of FPGA firmware. With this, you also have the opportunity to set the course for upgrades planned for the mid-scale Crystal Barrel Experiment (CBELSA/TAPS) in Bonn.
Last but not least, an external detector arrangement – e.g. consisting of scintillators – needs to be implemented around the detector in order to generate a trigger for cosmic particle track events. Measured tracks need to be visualized in the scope of an event display software. The scope of the project can be accommodated to your personal preferences.

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Responsible: Dimitri Schaab

Optimising the Transfer Properties in a Multi-GEM Detector (Master)

GEMs are widely used as amplification stage in gaseous detectors.
In most cases, not only one GEM is used but a stack of three or four foils.
Optimal settings for the configuration of the GEM stack have not been found.
This includes the type of GEM but also the high voltage settings of the different electrodes.

In order to optimise these settings, microscopic simulations (Garfield++) are used and compared to measurements with test-detectors in the laboratory.

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Responsible: Philip Hauer, Bernhard Ketzer

Monte Carlo studies for AMBER (Master / (Bachelor))

In the coming years, the AMBER experiment plans to take data with kaon beams on proton targets. It is essential to investigate the acceptance of the apperatus for any physics program. in the scope of a Master (Bachelor) thesis, we offer you the chance to simulate, with existing Monte Carlo software, the AMBER detectors and study the acceptance of the upcoming kaon physics.

Within this project, you will gain more advanced knowledge in c++ programming, data analysis with ROOT and much more.

Responsible: Martin Hoffmann, Henri Pekeler

Data Analysis: Proton radius pilot run 2021

During October 2021 we have performed a pilot run of the proton radius measurement⁵.
A first analysis of the main parts has been performed and we have shown the feasibility of the data set. There are still some open studies regarding resolution effects of the spectrometer and the time projection chamber. We search for students, who can help with one of those analyses.

In the scope of a master thesis, the analyses may be compared to simulations. For this an existing framework based on Geant4 will be used.

Responsible: Martin Hoffmann