On exoplanets, attoseconds and black holes

Since 2016, the School of Science at TUD – Dresden University of Technology has been organising the highly successful annual event series "Nobelpreisträger zu Gast an der TU Dresden", in which the "pop stars" of science inspire the university's usually packed Audimax with insights into their lives and research. Nineteen laureates from the fields of chemistry, physics and medicine have been in Dresden on this occasion in recent years. Now three more will join them.

This year's lecture series is all about physics. It will kick off with the Swiss astronomer Didier Queloz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 for the first discovery of a planet orbiting a sun-like star outside the solar system. On 30 May 2024, the 58-year-old world-leading scientist will take the Dresden audience on a journey into our universe, take a closer look at the origins of life on our planet and present the latest findings on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.

The French-Swedish physicist Anne L'Huillier will be a guest at TU Dresden on 28 June 2024 and report on her award-winning research into attosecond physics. Just last year, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz. She received the call from the Nobel Prize office during a lecture at the Swedish University of Lund, which she finished afterwards almost as if nothing had happened. The relatively new field of attosecond physics enables ultrashort light pulses to be used to analyse and control the dynamics of electrons in atoms and molecules. This ground-breaking basic research enables innovative approaches in information technology, medical diagnostics and the development of solar cells.

The third lecture of the year will take place in October. Prof Reinhard Genzel, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich, will talk about galaxies and black holes. In 2020, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez for research into black holes. Genzel and his team used high-precision methods to observe the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way called Sagittarius A*. With their measurements of stellar motions around SgrA* and of bursts of hot gas from the immediate vicinity of SgrA*, Genzel and a second group led by Andrea Ghez in California have convincingly shown that SgrA* really must be a black hole with a mass of 4 million solar masses.

The admission to all three lectures is free. Each event begins at 7 pm. Registration is requested.

Without the dedicated support of numerous companies, the realisation of this special event series would not be possible. We thanks to the sponsors Von Ardenne GmbH, Robert Bosch Semiconductor Manufacturing Dresden GmbH, Hotel Taschenberg Kempinski, the Association of Friends and Sponsors of TU Dresden (GFF) and Lohrmanns Brew.

All information and registration at:
www.tud.de/mn/nobel

Contact:
Nicole Gierig
Public Relations Officer
Email:
Tel. 0351 463 39504