Experiences

Thanks to the HGS-HIRe Abroad program I spent 
three interesting months in Southampton. 
The university of Southampton is one of the 
top research universities in the UK. 
Although the research group was part of the 
engineering department, we have been working 
on quantum field calculations. I worked with 
Dr. Thomas Fischbacher to do calculations of 
the Casimir effect on GPUs, using the Frankfurt 
supercomputer LOEWE. We met in a group of computer 
scientists, physicists, and mathematicians for 
theory sessions to get an overview of quantum 
field theory and the necessary statistics of 
Monte Carlo processes. We developed different 
code bases to test our ideas of the algorithm.



Besides the intensive work schedule I had the 
opportunity to join university sports facilities, 
which offer a three month contract for visiting 
scientists. (Ideal for HGS-HIRe Abroad terms) 
Five o'clock tea and pub meetings with the sports 
club were perfect opportunities to study English 
life and culture. Staying abroad gives you the 
opportunity to have insight into a different 
country, work in a different work group and 
enriches your thesis with new impulses and new 
views on your work.

Christopher Bauer - CERN, Switzerland, July-October 2011.

For many people outside the scientific community 
CERN seems to be somewhat the holy grails of nuclear 
research. Thanks to Dan Brown almost everybody knows 
about the production of antimatter there and due to 
the media also about the search for the Higgs boson. 
Nevertheless there is much more research at CERN, 
also interms of nuclear structure, especially at 
ISOLDE, where radioactive ions are produced for 
various experimental setups. HGS-HIRe provided me 
the chance to work in the ISOLDE physics groups 
at CERN for 12 weeks in summer 2011.

I mainly worked with Janne Pakarinen from Finland 
at the MINIBALL setup, a high-purity Germanium 
detector array, used for spectroscopy of gamma rays 
from Coulomb excitation and trasfer processes of 
post-accleratred radioactive beams. A very nice 
feature of the stay at such a facility was the 
possibility to get in contact with different scientists 
from all over the world, who came for their experiments 
for periods of 5-10 days, and also to participate in 
those experiments during the summer campaign.

CERN is located 5km from the center of Geneva at 
the border of Switzerland and Frace. With the Lake 
of Geneva and the Alps at close distance also beside 
the work there are plenty of possibility to spend 
time outside the lab.

Filippo Fratini - Oulu, Finland, July-September 2011.

Thanks to HGS-HIRe Aborad program, I had the opportunity 
to make research in Finland for three months in the summer 
2011. Finland is a really enjoyable land in summer time. 
There are many lakes, many clean and green areas to explore. 
The most terrific experience I have got has been seeing 
the day without night. Indeed, it has been amazing having 
a bath in the Baltic sea at midnight, when the sun was 
still shining and the environment was warm.

I carried out scientific research in the city of Oulu, 
in the nothern part of Finland. Oulu has an international 
University Campus, where students of any degreee course 
can meet, have discussions and good time together. 
Beside successfully carrying out the scientific project 
I started the trip for,I had the opportunity to get to 
know friends and scientific colleagues. With these latter, 
I have started another scientific project which is 
currently ongoing, from the distance. By staying outside 
my usual working place, I grew up both from a scientific 
and a personal point of view.

Marlene Nahrgang - Uppsala, Sweden, July-October 2010.

"Is there anything more to enjoy than some serious path 
integral calculations?" 

I asked myself while biking along the river Fyrisån 
and up the hill to Ångströmlaboratoriet.

The HGS-HIRe abroad program is the perfect opportunity 
for me to work together with my co-supervisor Stefan 
Leupold for a longer period of time. The working 
atmosphere at "Ångström" is very focused on the physics 
and the lab offers perfect conditions to concentrate 
on the analytical improvement of our model of chiral 
fluid dynamics.

There is plenty of time to discuss with Stefan, ask questions 
and learn. I really feel that I advance significantly during 
this stay. Moreover there are a number of pleasant side 
attractions in Uppsala. The long and warm summer days in Sweden 
in July, the lovely Nepali girls I share a flat with, the guest 
card for the students' nations that open the doors to students' 
life, the breathtaking landscapes of the surrounding natures or 
simply the calm, friendly and relaxed atmosphere of this cute 
city and its people.

Jan Uphoff - Cape Town, South-Africa, November-December 2010.

Because of HGS-Hire abroad I had the opportunity to visit 
the University of Cape Town (UCT) in November 2010. 
UCT is the oldest university in Africa and is located in 
a suburb of Cape Town, just at the bottom of the Table 
Mountain and Devil's Peak.

I stayed in Cape Town for 6 weeks to work together with 
Prof. Andre Peshier, with whom I have already started to 
collaborate during his time in Frankfurt. We studied the 
energy loss of a heavy quark in a flowing medium and 
compared analytical and numerical results. During my visit, 
there was plenty of time to discuss with Andre and I learned 
a lot. In addition, I could ask several questions concerning 
some calculations of him, which were too difficult to address 
via e-mail.

The relaxed atmosphere in the physics department and the 
tea-times twice a day, which (nearly) the whole department 
attends regularly, made it easy to meet other students or 
learn more about the department or UCT.

Besides the nice working environment at UCT, Cape Town also 
offers plenty of leisure activities: Hiking up the Table 
Mountain, visiting Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, going 
to one of the many beaches, and much more.

Such a research stay abroad is a great experience: it gives 
you plenty of time to discuss and work on your project, but 
at the same time you get to know a new culture, a different 
atmosphere and many nice people.