Department of Physics

structure of the Kepler Center

The groups presently involved in the Kepler Center are :

H.Clement, H.R. Schmidt, J.Jochum, T. Lachenmaier, W.Kley, K.Kokkotas, A.Santangelo, and K.Werner

The activities of the center include:

  • observational astronomy from optical up to TeV photons (galactic and extragalactic astrophysics)
  • Experimental High Energy Astrophysics (WSO, XMM, INTEGRAL, eRosita, SIMBOLX, HESS I & II)
  • high energy cosmic rays (JEM-EUSO, SUPER-EUSO)
  • theoretical and computational astrophysics (Planet formation, Physics of Accretion disks)
  • general relativity and gravitational waves (astrophysical and theoretical studies)
  • experimental astroparticle physics (dark matter search CRESST and EURECA)
  • experimental neutrino physics (ν-less double β-decay GERDA, ν-oscillations Double Chooz)
  • experimental particle physics (nucleon-nucleon interaction COSY)
  • theoretical particle physics

Such a combination of astronomy, astrophysics, general relativity, particle physics research together with a very rich experimental program cannot be found elsewhere in Germany.

The groups within the planned Kepler Center have been very successful during the recent years in acquiring funds, which amount presently to 3 MEuro per year from a large diversity of sources:

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft:
    • Transregio 7 SFB (DFG) on 'Gravitational Waves' (2002-2014)
    • Transregio 27 SFB (DFG) on 'Neutrinos and Beyond' (2007-2011)
    • European Graduate School 'Hadrons in Vacuum, Nuclei and Stars' (DFG) together with Basel and Graz (2001-2009)
    • Forschergruppe 759 'Formation of Planets' (2007-2013)
    • Several Minor Grants
  • BMBF:
    • Verbundforschung 'Astronomie und Astroteilchenphysik'
    • Verbundforschung 'Hadronen und Kerne'
    • COSY-FFE (Forschungszentrum Jülich)
  • EU- FP6:
    • 'ILIAS' (Integrated Large Infrastructure Initiative for Astropartice Science)
    • 'I3HP' (Integrated Infrastructure Initiative for Hadron Physics)
    • Network on 'Planet Formation'
  • DLR
    • Verbundforschung 'Astronomie und Astrophysik'
    • Experimental Projects: INTEGRAL & XMM Newton, eROSITA, Simbol-X , WSO

The Kepler Center shall in future bundle the funding activities to present the activities in Astro and Particle Physics at the University Tübingen in a coherent way towards the scientific community: this will allow the single Institutes to acquire critical mass in international projects.