Participating Institutes and their Research Topics

  • Institute for Experimental Particle Physics (ETP) 
    Experimental particle physics at high energy colliders at the European laboratory for particle physics CERN  and at KEK in Japan; Astroparticle physics at the highest energies at KIT Campus North and at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina; Search for dark matter underground with EDELWEISS and on the International Space Station with AMS-02; Measurement of the neutrino mass with KATRIN at KIT.
  • Institute for Astroparticle Physics (IAP) 
    Fundamental research in the fields of particle- and astrophysics in cooperation with international research institutions. Current projects are the air shower simulation CORSIKA, the direct dark matter search experiment EDELWEISS, the neutrino mass experiment KATRIN, the air shower experiments at the Pierre Auger Observatory and Tunka-Rex.
  • Institute of Micro- and Nanoelectronic Systems (IMS) 
    Development, fabrication, characterization and application of cryogenic quantum sensor and detectors as well as quantum-electronic circuits for tackling scientific, social as well industrial challenges in sensing and detection.
  • Institute for Data Processing and Electronics (IPE) 
    KATRIN: control systems, data acquisition and detector development as well as coordination of superordinate tasks and the interfaces between the control systems of the partial experiments.
    Pierre AUGER Observatory: Development, production and installation of the digital electronics for the fluorescence telescopes. This includes the development of a multi-level trigger system, its integration in the data acquisition, the installation of the LAN infrastructure and more.
    AUGER-ACCESS: Auger-Access will allow worldwide access to the Pierre Auger Observatory by the development of remote control and remote monitoring functionalities.
  • Institute for Information Processing Technologies (ITIV) 
    Efforts for a continuous and, to a large extent, automated design process for Methods and Computer-Aided Design Tools. The applicability of the developed concepts is proven by the realization of electronic systems and microsystems. Typical Projects are from the fields automotive, medical technology, telecommunications, system on chip and sensors.
  • Institute for Technical Physics (ITEP) 
    Superconductivity and cryogenics and their applications. The activities span over the areas of nuclear fusion, electric power equipment and high field magnets. Developments of superconductors, especially high temperature superconductors, cryogenic components and the characterisation of lower temperature structure materials.
    A new field in recent years are contributions in cryo-, vacuumtechnique and superconductivity to the large neutrino experiment KATRIN.
  • Institute for Technical Thermodynamic and Refrigeration (ITTK)
    Research and development in refrigeration and cryogenics, in particular vapor compression and absorption cycles, mixed refrigerant circuits, measurement and modelling of phase equilibria, cryogenic separation techniques, liquid helium applications, cryogenic measurement techniques and cryogenic safety.
  • Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP) 
    Quantum Field Theory: Nonperturbative solutions, fundamental symmetries, quantum phase transitions, vacuum energy and cosmology.
    Phenomenological High Energy Physics: Collider Physics, Program VBFNLO.
  • Institute for Theoretical Nuclear Physics (TTP) 
    We perform precision calculations to find hints of physics beyond the Standard Model from precision measurements. Our main focuses are Higgs and flavour physics; we calculate higher-order radiative corrections both within the Standard Model and in dedicated models of new physics. TTP hosts the Collaborative Research Center TRR 257, "Particle Physics Phenomenology after the Higgs Discovery", with scientists from TTP, ITP, IKP, and the universities of Aachen, Siegen, and Heidelberg.
  • Scientific Computing Center (SCC) 
    Research, development and innovation in the fields of high performance computing (HPC), data intensive computing (DIC), and secure IT federations. As part of these activities SCC cooperates with partners from science and industry in Europe and beyond. SCC’s research focuses on scientific computing, modelling and simulation, large scale data management & analysis, grids, and cloud computing. Other priorities are cluster computing, innovative network technologies, IT security, medical technology, and virtualisation.
    Participation in two programmes of the Helmholtz Association: "Supercomputing" and "Elementary Particle Physics".
    The Scientific Computing Center (SCC) is a research institution as well as the information technology centre of KIT. Apart from the tasks of a modern IT service centre for science, SCC does own research and development in the fields of Supercomputing, Big Data and safe IT-federations. On behalf of the state of Baden-Württemberg, SCC maintains a research High Performance Computer for a nationwide audience. Furthermore it assures the High Performance Computing basic supply of the Baden-Württemberg universities. For the international high energy physics community SCC operates GridKa, a Tier-1 data centre for storage, analysis and archiving of the LHC data.
  • Institute for Beam Physics and Technology (IBPT)
    The IBPT operates several particle accelerators for the generation and diagnostics of ultra-short electron bunches. In the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA), a 110m long synchrotron light source, electrons are stored at almost the speed of light. The Far-Infrared Linac and Test Experiment (FLUTE), based on a linear accelerator, is designed for systematic studies at the forefront of modern short-pulse accelerators. In the ATHENA project, a laser plasma accelerator is being developed using a terawatt femtosecond laser system at IBPT.

These Institutes contribute to the academic teaching of the Faculties of Physics, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Informatics, and Chemical and Process Engineering.

KCETA ExperimentsKCETA / KIT