Eberhard Widmann
Director
Eberhard Widmann
Director
- Group Leader Precision Experiments
- Precision experiments
- Exotic atoms
Biographical sketch
Academic career
2025 - Director at Marietta Blau Institute for Particle Physics, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna.
2004 – 2025 Director of the Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna.
1999 Senior Project Associate, ASACUSA collaboration at CERN.
1998 Project Associate of the ASACUSA collaboration at CERN and visiting researcher in the group of Prof. R.S. Hayano at the Physics Department of the University of Tokyo. Project Leader for the laser and microwave spectroscopy experiments on antiprotonic helium. Member of the ASACUSA steering committee.
1997 – 1998 STA-Fellow at the Muon Science Laboratory, RIKEN, Saitama, Japan.
1996 – 1997 Project Associate of the PS205 collaboration at CERN.
1993 – 1996 Fellow at the European Laboratory for High Energy Physics (CERN, Geneva).
1990 – 1993 JSPS Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Nuclear Study, University of Tokyo (Japan).
Education
1979 – 1985 Study of physics at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
1985 – 1986 Experimental diploma thesis work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metals Research (MPI), Stuttgart on pion-muon channeling experiments carried out at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland.
1986 Diplom-Physiker (equivalent to Masters degree), University of Stuttgart
1986 – 1990 Ph. D. work at the MPI Stuttgart. Subject: Search for Positron Electron Scattering Resonances in the MeV Region using the mono-energetic positron beam available at MPI Stuttgart.
01.11.1990 Dr. rer. nat (Dr. of Science, equivalent to Ph. D.) “mit Auszeichnung” (maxima cum laude) in experimental physics, University of Stuttgart.
1999 Dr. rer. nat. habil., Habilitation in Experimental Physics at the Physics Department of the Technische Universität München. Subject: Experimental Studies of the Metastability of antiprotonic Helium .
since 2006 Honorary professor for subatomic physics, University of Vienna.
Funding
Graduate School Particles and Interactions, Austrian Science Fund FWF, 2014 - 2022.
Partner in Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Training Network AVA - Acellerators Validating Antimatter, 2018 - 2022.
- Host for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship ANGRAM - Antimatter Gravity Measurement, 2017 - 2019.
- ERC Advanced Grant Hyperfine structure of antihydrogen, 2012 - 2018.
- Standalone Project Hyperfine Structure of antiprotonic helium, Austrian Science Fund FWF, 2009 - 2012.
- Standalone Project Precision spectroscopy of kaonic helium-3, Austrian Science Fund FWF, 2008 - 2012.
Academic Honors and Awards
2011 ERC Advanced Grant “HbarHFS – Hyperfine Structure of Antihydrogen ”.
1990 Ph.D. award “mit Auszeichnung” (“with distinction”, maxima cum laude), University of Stuttgart.
Professional Service
Chair of NuPECC (Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee, ESF) since 2024, Deputy chair since 2018.
Co-spokesperson of the ASACUSA collaboration (since 2018).
Vice Chair (since 2025), Secretary (since 2021), Member (since 2017) of the IUPAP Commission for Nuclear Physics C12.
Chair of the G-PAC (General Program Advisory Committee) of GSI-FAIR since 2025, member since 2017.
Member of the Review board of the BMBF project funding scheme "Particles" ("Gutachterauschuß Verbundforschung") 2021-2026.
President (2015-2016) and Vice President (2014, 2017) of the Austrian Physical Society (ÖPG).
Chairman (2013-2014) and Vice-Chairman (2012, 2015) of the Division of Particle and Nuclear Physics of the Austrian Physical Society.
External Counselling Body of the Institute of Nuclear Research (ATOMKI, Debrecen, 2010-2019) and the KFKI Research Institute of Particle Physics (Budapest, 2010-2011) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Austrian representative in NuPECC (Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee, ESF), member of the steering committee for the Long Range Plans 2010, 2017, and 2024 in charge of the working group „Fundamental interactions and symmetries“.
Chairman of the “Institutsdirektorenkonferenz”, the assembly of directors of institutes of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2011-2015).
Responsible for Austria in the executive board of the German JSPS Alumni Organisation “JSPS Club” (2014-2019)
GSI G-PAC (General program advisory committee, GSI Darmstadt) 2004-2009.
Austrian representative in the Scientific and Technical Issues (STI) committee of the FAIR facility, Darmstadt (2005-2010).
Teaching
- University of Vienna
- Winter Semester:
- Lecture 260012 Experimental Particle Physics I: Introduction
- Seminar 260090 Seminar on experimental particle physics 1
- Summer Semester
- Lecture 260300 Experimental Particle Physics II: Accelerators and Detectors
- Seminar 260135 Seminar on experimental particle physics II
- Lecture 267303 Atoms, Nuclei and Particles (2026, together with J. Pradler)
- Winter Semester:
Research Projects
- ASACUSA: Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons at CERN-AD: Hyperfine spectroscopy of antihydrogen for test of CPT and Lorentz Invariace Symmetry, Founding member, co-spokesperson (since 2018).
- Hydra: In-beam hyperfine spectroscopy of hydrogen and its isotopes for test of CPT and Lorentz Invariace Symmetry
- GRASIAN:GRAvity, Spectroscopy and Interferometry with ultra-cold Atoms and Neutrons.
Research interests
Current interest: Precision studies of CPT symmetry and QED in antiprotonic atoms and antihydrogen, precision measurements of fundamental symmetries and interactions using ultra-cold hydrogen, strong interaction at low energy in exotic kaonic and antiprotonic atoms.
Previous interest: exotic kaon-nucleon and kaon-nucleus bound states, meson spectroscopy and in-medium effects of mesons at BELLE and PANDA.
Publications
- Observation of tensor-driven high-momentum neutrons in 16O via (p,d) reactions and zero-degree deuteron momentum spectroscopy. / Tensor-Force Collaboration; Super-FRS Expt Collaboration.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, Vol. 879, 140563, 08.2026. - CPT and Lorentz symmetry tests with hydrogen using a novel in-beam hyperfine spectroscopy method applicable to antihydrogen experiments. / Nowak, L.; Malbrunot, C.; Simon, M. C. et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, Vol. 858, 15.11.2024, p. ARTN 139012. - GRASIAN: Shaping and characterization of the cold hydrogen and deuterium beams for the forthcoming first demonstration of gravitational quantum states of atoms. / Killian, Carina; Blumer, Philipp; Crivelli, Paolo et al.
In: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol. 78, No. 10, 29.10.2024, p. 132. - Experimental perspectives on the matter-antimatter asymmetry puzzle: developments in electron EDM and H experiments. / Comparat, D.; Malbrunot, C.; Malbrunot-Ettenauer, S. et al.
In: Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, Vol. 382, No. 2266, 05.02.2024, p. ARTN 20230089. - Measurement of electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays at midrapidity in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV. / Collaboration, ALICE; Widmann, Eberhard; Capon, Aaron et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, No. 2020, 10.05.2020, p. 135377. - Exploration of jet substructure using iterative declustering in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies. / Collaboration, ALICE; Capon, Aaron; Lehner, Sebastian et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, No. 2020, 10.03.2020, p. 135227. - Multiplicity dependence of light (anti-)nuclei production in p-Pb collisions at d460;NN = 5.02 TeV. / Collaboration, ALICE; Capon, Aaron; Bühler, Paul et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, No. 2019, 10.01.2020, p. 135043. - Coherent J/Psi photoproduction at forward rapidity in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV. / Collaboration, ALICE; Bühler, Paul; Lehner, Sebastian et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, No. 2019, 10.11.2019, p. 134926. - Study of the Λ-Λ interaction with femtoscopy correlations in pp and p-Pb collisions at the LHC. / Collaboration, ALICE; Bühler, Paul; Widmann, Eberhard et al.
In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics, No. 2019, 10.10.2019, p. 134822. - A hydrogen beam to characterize the ASACUSA antihydrogen hyperfine spectrometer. / Malbrunot, C.; Diermaier, M.; Simon, M. C. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 935, 11.08.2019, p. 110-120. - Characterization of a transmission positron/positronium converter for antihydrogen production. / Aghion, S.; Amsler, C.; Ariga, T. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Vol. 407, 15.09.2017, p. 55-66. - Annihilation detector for an in-beam spectroscopy apparatus to measure the ground state hyperfine splitting of antihydrogen. / Sauerzopf, C.; Capon, A.; Diermaier, M. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, No. 845, 11.02.2017, p. 579-582. - Direct detection of antiprotons with the Timepix3 in a new electrostatic selection beamline. / Pacifico, N.; Aghion, S.; Alozy, J. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 831, 21.09.2016, p. 12-17. - Intelligent Front-end Electronics for Silicon photodetectors (IFES). / Sauerzopf, Clemens; Gruber, Lukas; Suzuki, Ken et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 819, 21.05.2016, p. 163-166. - Positron bunching and electrostatic transport system for the production and emission of dense positronium clouds into vacuum. / Aghion, S.; Amsler, C.; Ariga, A. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Vol. 362, 01.11.2015, p. 86-92. - Towards a precise measurement of the antihydrogen ground state hyperfine splitting in a beam: the case of in-flight radiative decays. / Lundmark, R.; Malbrunot, C.; Nagata, Y. et al.
In: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol. 48, No. 18, 28.09.2015, p. ARTN 184001. - Towards a precise measurement of the antihydrogen ground state hyperfine splitting in a beam: the case of in-flight radiative decays. / Lundmark, R.; Malbrunot, C.; Nagata, Y. et al.
In: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol. 48, No. 18, 29.07.2015, p. 7. - Investigation of silicon sensors for their use as antiproton annihilation detectors. / Pacifico, N.; Aghion, S.; Ahlén, O. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 765, 19.06.2014, p. 161. - Liquid helium-free cryostat and hermetically sealed cryogenic microwave cavity for hyperfine spectroscopy of antiprotonic helium. / Massiczek, O.; Friedreich, S.; Juhasz, B. et al.
In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 659, 11.12.2011, p. 55-60.
- The scintillating bar detector of the ASACUSA experiment. / Mascagna, V.; Amsler, C.; Bayo, M. et al.
International Conference on Exotic Atoms and Related Topics and Conference on Low Energy Antiprotons. ed. / Claude Amsler; Paul Buehler; Daniel Murtagh; Eberhard Widmann. Vol. 480 SISSA, 2025. p. 77. - VIP2 at Gran Sasso - Test of the validity of the spin statistics theorem for electrons with X-ray spectroscopy. / Marton, J.; Pichler, A.; Bartalucci, S. et al.
XV International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics. 2020. p. 012087 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series). - The AEgIS experiment at CERN: measuring antihydrogen free-fall in earth’s gravitational field to test WEP with antimatter. / Brusa, R S; Amsler, C; Ariga, T et al.
14th International Workshop on Slow Positron Beam Techniques & Applications. 2017. p. 8 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series). - Searches for the violation of Pauli exclusion principle at LNGS in VIP(-2) experiment. / Shi, H.; Bartalucci, S.; Bertolucci, S. et al.
XIV International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP 2015) 7–11 September 2015. Torino: IOPScience, 2016. p. 042055 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series). - Application of photon detectors in the VIP2 experiment to test the Pauli Exclusion Principle. / Pichler, A.; Bartalucci, S.; Bazzi, M. et al.
XIV International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP 2015) 7–11 September 2015. Torino: IOPScience, 2016. p. 052030 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series). - The development of the antihydrogen beam detector and the detection of the antihydrogen atoms for in-flight hyperfine spectroscopy. / Nagata, Y.; Sauerzopf, C.; Capon, A. et al.
XXIX International Conference on Photonic, Electronic, and Atomic Collisions (ICPEAC2015). 2015. - Investigation of the low energy kaons hadronic interactions in light nuclei by AMADEUS. / Piscicchia, K.; Bazzi, M.; Berucci, C. et al.
MESON 2014 – 13th International Workshop on Production, Properties and Interaction of Mesons. 2015. p. 01016 (EPJ Web of Conferences 81). - Search for the K − pp bound state via the 3 He( K − , n ) reaction at 1 GeV/ c. / Hashimoto, T.; Ajimura, S.; Beer, G. et al.
3rd International Workshop on "State of the Art in Nuclear Cluster Physics" 26–30 May 2014, Yokohama, Japan. IOPScience, 2014. p. 012080 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series 569). - Search for deeply bound Kaonic nuclear states via 3He(K−, n) reaction at J-PARC. / Ma, Y.; Ajimura, S.; Beer, G. et al.
Seventh International Symposium on Chiral Symmetry in Hadrons and Nuclei Beijing, China, 27 – 30 October 2013. 2014. p. 107 (Chiral Symmetry in Hadrons and Nuclei). - Progress and perspectives in the low-energy kaon-nucleon/nuclei interaction studies at the DAΦNE collider. / Iliescu, M.; Bazzi, M.; Beer, G. et al.
XI International Conference on Hyperons, Charm and Beauty Hadrons (BEACH 2014) 21–26 July 2014, Birmingham, UK. 2014. p. 012004 (Journal of Physics: Conference Series 556). - Measuring gbar withAEgIS, progress and perspectives. / Krasnicky, D.; Aghion, S.; Ahlen, O. et al.
2nd International Workshop on Antimatter and Gravity ( WAG 2013 ) 13-15 November 2013, Bern, Switzerland. 2014. p. 1460262 (International Journal of Modern Physics: Conference Series 30). - Experimental Tests of Quantum Mechanics: Pauli Exclusion Principle and Spontaneous Collapse Models. / Petrascu; Curceanu, Catalina; Bartalucci, Sergio et al.
International Symposium Frontiers of Fundamental Physics - 12th edition, 21–23 November 2011, Udine, Italy. 2014. p. 181 (Springer Proceedings in Physics 145).
- Underground test of quantum mechanics - the VIP2 experiment. / Marton, J.; Bartalucci, S.; Bassi, A. et al.
Quantum Foundations, Probability and Information. Quantum Foundations, Probability and Information. ed. Cham: Springer, 2018. p. 155 (STEAM-H: Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics & Health).