Thesis topics and offers

The ETAP groups offer students a great variety of Bachelor, Master and PhD thesis topics in the fields of high energy particle, detector and neutrino physics and dark matter searches. Typical theses topics are experimental and phenomenological data analysis using software, electronics and hardware developments for detectors as well as FPGA programming. Large data analyses are typically performed on the Mogon computer cluster of the University of Mainz or the Grid.Below you will find a list of of topics and the corresponding contact person(s). Feel free to browse our website or contact us for more information, detailed proposal of a topic and suggestions.

Current offers

Neutrino Physics at Accelerators & Reactors

Prof. Dr. Alfons Weber

High energy and detector R&D with the ATLAS experiment at LHC
High energy and detector R&D with the Calice experiment at the ILC
  • Design, production and test of new readout components. e.g. the CCC
  • Test beam operation & analysis
  • Generic R&D to exploit SiPM in high energy physic (HEP) applications

Prof. Dr. Volker Büscher
Prof. Dr. Lucia Masetti
Prof. Dr. Stefan Tapprogge

High energy physics with NA62
  • Measurement of the ultra-rare decay K+→π+ν anti-ν
  • Search for Lepton Number Violation, Heavy Neutrinos, Dark Photons, and other exotic and exiting new phenomena
  • Precision measurement of the Cabibbo angle

Dr. Rainer Wanke

High energy physics with SHiP
  • Development of an electromagnetic calorimeter and construction of a prototype
  • Simulation of exotic decays in the SHiP detector
  • Development and construction of a liquid scintillator detector prototype

Dr. Rainer Wanke
Prof. Dr. Michael Wurm

Dark Matter searches
  • Data analysis : Simulations, WIMP physics, detector physics, energy scale, back-
    grounds and efficiencies
  • XENON1T and its Muon Veto, XENONnT and its Neutron Veto
  • Development of future multi-ton liquid xenon detectors
  • MainzTPC, Hardware and Simulations
  • Compton Telescope: Simulations and Hardware

Prof. Dr. Uwe Oberlack

  • Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background in the future DARWIN experiment

Prof. Dr. Michael Wurm

Search for Axion-Like Particles
  • Developments for Transition Edge Detectors for the ALPS-II Experiment
  • Developments for X-Ray photon detectors for the International Axion Observatory (IAXO)

Prof. Dr. Matthias Schott

Study of neutrino interactions with ANNIE
  • Study the performance of water-based scintillator and ultrafast LAPPD photo sensors in neutrino interactions and our local lab
  • Reconstruct hybrid Cherenkov and scintillation signals
  • Investigate GeV neutrino interactions in a new target medium
  • Simulation studies and hardware preparation for a new water-based liquid scintillator phase

Prof. Dr. Michael Wurm

Neutrino physics with IceCube
Neutrino oscillations and Supernova neutrino observation with JUNO
  • Laboratory measurements of liquid scintillator properties
  • Operation and data analysis for the OSIRIS pre-detector
  • Analysis of radioactive background levels in OSIRIS and JUNO
  • Future sensitivity for galactic Supernova neutrinos
    and the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background in JUNO

Prof. Dr. Michael Wurm

Master of Education
  • Development, test, and evaluation of instructional series for physics instruction at high school level
  • Development, test, and evaluation of physics outreach material, in particular for particle physics
  • Development and implementation of experiments for physics instruction

Prof. Dr. Frank Fiedler
Dr. Friedrich Kayser
Dr. Christian Schmitt