Welcome to ECAP

Astroparticle Physics

Astroparticle Physics addresses processes and structures in the interplay of extreme phenomena at smallest and largest scales in the Universe. We know for instance, that particles are accelerated to energies exceeding those of man-made machines by many orders of magnitude. But we still lack a solid understanding of the acceleration mechanisms and the astronomical environment that nature has chosen to realize the cosmic accelerators. Other examples are the physics of black holes and their vicinity, the search for dark matter, the investigation of neutrino properties employing cosmic sources or the quantum structure of space-time.

The ECAP

ECAP is a research centre encompassing the working groups of 11 professors with over 150 scientists. ECAP is an Emerging Field Centre of the University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Together with the astrophysics group at the University of Würzburg it builds up the North Bavarian Science Cluster for Astronomy and Astroparticle Physics.

Our key topics

ECAP combines expertise in the fields of neutrino, X-ray and very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. ECAP also integrates the research in neutrino physics, in optical astronomy and the development of new detectors. Theory groups work in quantum gravity and statistical physics. With the ECAP, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg has created an outstanding framework for scientists to participate in major projects of astroparticle physics: in neutrino astronomy we participate in the projects ANTARES, KM3NeT and IceCube; the experiments H.E.S.S. and CTA work in the field of very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy; the satellite experiments eROSITA and ATHENA belong to a new generation of X-ray telescopes; EXO-200, nEXO and ORCA investigate neutrino properties. In all of these experiments, scientists of the ECAP are deeply involved in the manifold challenges of constructing and running detectors in such extreme conditions as the deep sea/ice, deep underground or space. Detector development at ECAP is not restricted to fundamental research but is successfully transferred to medical applications.

School for astroparticle physics

Since the year 2004, the University of Erlangen hosts the School for astroparticle physics (SAT), addressing students from all over Germany and from abroad. Starting 2015 the school is held in English and is open to international participants. The yearly school, running for 10 days in October, allows the participants to deepen their understanding of the fundamental concepts of astroparticle physics, and to gain insight on up-to-date research topics and to get to know each other.

Navigation


News

Category: News, Top News

This year, the regional competition "Jugend forscht" Mittelfranken took place at the Department of Physics at FAU - hosted in the ECAP Laboratory. The young researchers presented their projects on analysing aspartame in soft drinks, the optimal cornering in karting and paper made from natural mater...

Category: News, Top News

After a hiatus of a couple of years, Erlangen physics students had the chance to join a 3 day excursion to CERN. 42 students (accompanied by Prof. Dr. Anna Nelles and PD Dr. Robert Lahmann) learned about the history of CERN, visited the ATLAS control room, the Antimatter Factory, the CERN exhibit and various other places at the world‘s largest center for particle physics research. The trip was kindly sponsored by the Department of Physics and the elite graduate program of physics at FAU.

Category: News, Top News

The Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (ECAP) hosted a workshop on the science prospects and optimization of P-ONE in the second week of January.

Category: News, Top News

Enthusiasts and experts for the Julia programming language gathered at ECAP from 6th-9th November to pave the way for the use of Julia in High Energy Physics (HEP) in the first JuliaHEP workshop. Organized by experts from the field, four days were dedicated to tutorials, short presentations an...