The Scientific Director of FIAS, Eckhard Elsen, will be awarded the W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics 2025 by the American Physical Society (APS) together with Robert Klanner. The two particle physicists are being honoured for their pioneering work on the large particle accelerator HERA (Hadron-Electron Ring Facility) at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron). Both scientists were professors at the University of Hamburg and conducted research together at DESY.

Dark Energy is a subset of energy that accelarates the expansion of our universe. A new research work at FIAS studies the impact of dark energy inside our galaxies. The research shows that in order to have stable galaxies the repulsion force of dark energy cannot exceed two orders of magnitde of the known value from cosmology. This study suggests that dark energy plays a role stronger than expected even in the closeby universe.

The FIAS PhD students embarked on a retreat to Marburg for four days in October. The exciting and rapidly growing field of digital twins was the focus of their trip.

FIAS congratulates this year's Nobel Prize winners in Physics and Chemistry, whose work is directly related to research at FIAS. The fundamental findings of John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton on artificial neural networks, together with the massive progress in computing, have laid the foundation for today's AI revolution.

Vapour bubbles are feared in industrial plants. They form in pipes when pressurised liquid begins to boil or vaporise. The bubbles that form and suddenly collapse damage pumps and equipment. A research group at FIAS is now presenting a new approach to detecting these ‘cavitations’, which could significantly improve industrial pipework management. All industries with fluid systems such as water, energy and manufacturing could benefit.

The next generation of neuroscientists was in the focus of the Bernstein Network PhD Symposium at FIAS. On October 2/3, following the international Bernstein Conference in Frankfurt, it provided a platform for young scientists to network, exchange experiences, and to connect.

The ‘digital twin’, the virtual image of an object, is already being used in industry to optimise processes. Simulations for sub-processes are established in a scientific context. However, processes in the life sciences are orders of magnitude more complicated. The Giersch International Conference ‘From Multiscale Models to Digital Twins’ successfully brought together scientists from various disciplines at FIAS in September 2024 to discuss this topic.

20 years of FIAS - 70 years of CERN: a reason to celebrate and exchange ideas. The FIAS Forum hosted Charlotte Lindberg Warakaulle, the first Director of International Relations at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.

Creative processes and their underlying mechanisms in our nervous system were the focus of the conference "Bridging Fields in Creativity Research." The interdisciplinary meeting took place in mid-September 2024 at the historic Old Courthouse in Oppenheim. Organized by Jens-Bastian Eppler (FIAS) and Matthias Kaschube (FIAS) from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), and Simon Rumpel from the Research Center for Translational Neurosciences (FTN) at the University Medical Center Mainz, the event brought together over 50 leading scientists from neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence to investigate the neural mechanisms behind creativity.

Roberto Covino has been appointed Senior Fellow at FIAS. He has been a research group leader and Fellow at FIAS since 2020.

Creative processes and their mechanisms in our nervous system are the focus of the conference ‘Bridging Fields in Creativity Research’. The interdisciplinary conference will take place from 11 to 13 September 2024 in the historic Old District Court in Oppenheim. The organisers from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) and the Research Centre for Translational Neuroscience (FTN) at the Mainz University Medical Centre will bring together leading scientists from various disciplines.

As part of the annual summer tours, 60 scientists from all over the world listened to talks at FIAS.

For the second time, the Frankfurt International Graduate School for Science (FIGSS) at FIAS awarded the ‘Best FIGSS Talk’ for summer and winter semester 2023(/24). The FIGSS was founded in 2004 and brings together FIAS doctoral candidates working on a wide range of research topics from nuclear physics to mathematical biology.

Johannes Lehrbach from Volker Lindenstruth's FIAS research group defended his PhD Thesis on July 5th, 2024. During his PhD, he was instrumental in building the computing infrastructure for the Event Processing Nodes (EPN) of the ALICE experiment at CERN.

Next Saturday, FIAS will be opening its doors to the public to celebrate its 20th anniversary: Anyone who wishes to control the football with their mind in front of the television - FIAS research makes it possible! More hands-on experiments, short, easy-to-understand presentations, a children's programme as well as coffee and cake will attract visitors to the striking red building on the Riedberg with a view of the skyline.

FIAS PhD student Armin van de Venn presented his work at the international conference "Metric-Affine Frameworks for Gravity 2024" in Estonia.

Jan Hammelmann completed his doctorate in the group of FIAS Senior Fellow Hannah Elfner.

FIAS PhD student Chen Li spoke as an invited speaker at the ‘Strommarkttreffen’ (Electricity Market Meeting) in Berlin. He presented his findings on optimising power dispatch using machine learning. Researchers at FIAS have developed a state-of-the-art AI system that balances out weather-dependent fluctuations in the electricity grid and thus ensures the efficient and reliable distribution of electricity from sources such as solar and wind (https://fias.news/en/news-publicity/ai-solution-avoids-weather-dependent-fluctuations-in-the-power-system/).

Can we trust AI - and where are the pitfalls? The first German professor of ethics in information technology, Judith Simon (Hamburg University), addressed these complicated questions in the FIAS Forum public lecture series.

The cortex allows us humans to think, perceive our environment and act purposefully. Certain patterns of brain activity enable this; they emerge early in brain development through dynamic processes of self-organisation. This is shown by researchers from the University of Minnesota (UoM) and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) in a study published in Nature Communications. They found that the networks of the young cortex convert unstructured input into highly organised activity patterns. The organisation of these patterns is therefore not determined externally (e.g. by sensory input), but arises through interaction between the nerve cells and follows dynamic laws.