ECAP researcher Dr. Alison Mitchell awarded Helga-Kersten-Prize of the Faculty of Science
Dr. Alison Mitchell has been awarded the 2024 Helga-Kersten Prize as sole recipient. The Helga-Kersten Prize is the Faculty of Science’s Women’s prize at the FAU, awarded annually to up to two young female researchers. It is targeted towards particularly high-achieving young women academics from all departments with excellent career prospects, such as habilitands or outstanding post-doctoral researchers, who can either apply on their own initiative or be nominated.
Dr. Alison Mitchell is a junior research group leader who has led a DFG-funded Emmy Noether group at the FAU since 2021. After completing her PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg in 2016, she worked as assistant project scientist for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory before postdoctoral research positions at both the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.
Her research is focussed on studying astrophysical particle accelerators and understanding the origins of Cosmic Rays, energetic charged particles that continuously reach Earth from space. In particular, she is interested in sources within our own Galaxy, such as supernova remnants (expanding blast waves following a supernova explosion) and the environments of pulsars; rapidly spinning dead stars.
Cosmic rays interact with ambient gas, dust and light to produce signature emission such as gamma-ray photons. Astronomy using gamma-rays, corresponding to the high energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum, is ideal to trace the presence of these energetic particles, even once they have escaped from the accelerator. This leads to many astronomical gamma-ray sources being unexplained due to the lack of an obvious particle accelerator nearby.
With this funding, she will further investigate how escaped cosmic rays can illuminate nearby clouds of gas and dust, making them shine in gamma-rays. The funding will support student internships and visits from international collaborators to further develop software that accurately encapsulates the physics of cosmic ray illuminated clouds, matching this to data. In due course, the software will be made publicly available for use by other astrophysics researchers.