A summary of three years of the activity of POB High Energy Physics and Experimental Techniques
Major events
15 projects were awarded funding in three competitions for POB research grants.
As part of the research grant obtained under the FWEiTE-1 competition, a team from the Faculty of Physics of the Warsaw University of Technology assumed the task to study the geometry and dynamics of heavy ion collisions using correlative femtoscopy in close cooperation with scientists from around the world as part of the STAR (RHIC), HADES (SIS-18) and CBM (SIS-100) experiments. In their work, the researchers focused heavily on the analysis of the phase diagram of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in a previously unexplored area, i.e. collisions of heavy ions in the hitherto untested collision energy range of several or tens of gigaelectron volts (GeV). More about the project >>>
Another team from the same faculty investigated changes in the characteristics of the strong interaction between ordinary matter and strange matter. The results obtained by PW scientists confirm the change in the nature of the strong interaction from attractive to repulsive when the average distance between the antikaon and the proton increases from 10-15 m to 4x10-15 m and more. Their findings were published in Physics Letters B journal. More about research progress >>>
Strategic activities
Since scientific research in this area is conducted mainly in an international environment, POB HEP plays an important part in increasing PW’s internationalisation. Thanks to the created network of contacts, there were some new additions to the scientific staff, including doctoral students, post-doc researchers, and independent employees. Work was undertaken to increase the internationalisation of the courses offered by creating new fields, programmes, and elements of the English-medium studies programme, and implementing selected elements of education abroad – in particular, foreign student internships, individual studies, and the implementation of diploma theses as part of international cooperation.
As part of the implementation of strategic activities, POB HEP also focused on supporting and initiating the participation of PW groups in Big Science class projects (in the field of high energy physics and experimental techniques). New groups from PW joined large, international research cooperation by formally signing a "Memorandum of Understanding" agreement. POB actively developed and financially supported participation in already established cooperations. POB created the administrative infrastructure and supported the substantive and organisational groups from PW in fulfilling new tasks in Big Science experiments. These activities resulted in the integration of teams from numerous PW faculties, which are currently actively applying for Polish, European, and international grants.
POB HEP opened the Design and Implementation Laboratory “ELHEP” to develop new research initiatives, hardware and software integration for the purposes of new projects and collaborations, to enhance resources for the implementation of algorithms, including the so-called quantum, simulation for particle physics, non-condensed matter, computing and simulations in the area of Big Data and models of particle and quantum physics. POB used this opportunity to place particular emphasis on supporting and hiring fresh staff: a new team of young scientists was created in the fields of measurement and control electronics, nuclear and quantum physics, and related computer science.
