Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics

Many of the details concerning how the world arrived at its current form are still unexplained. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics want to close some of the gaps in our knowledge and thus contribute to an all-encompassing theory for this development. In astroparticle physics they study the structure and the formation history of the universe, which is closely related to the elementary structure of matter. With the H.E.S.S. gamma-ray telescope, for example, they observe the remnants of supernovae. The scientists also investigate the properties of neutrinos, ghost-like elementary particles, and probe the character of dark matter. In the area of quantum dynamics they are interested, for instance, in the interaction of the smallest particles in atomic nuclei, atoms and molecules, which they study in accelerators, storage rings and traps. They also learn more about molecules by controlling simple chemical reactions with intense laser light.