Hans Volker Klapdor-Kleingrothaus

Hans Volker Klapdor - Kleingrothaus (also HV Klapdor ), ( born January 25, 1942 in Reinbek ) is a German physicist who deals with nuclear physics, particle physics and astrophysics.

Klapdor - Kleingrothaus studied, after graduating from high school in 1960 at Johanneum, physics at the University of Hamburg (1966 degree in experimental nuclear physics at H. Neuert ) and received his doctorate in 1969 with a thesis on gamma-ray spectroscopy of a particle accelerator. From 1969 (until 2007) he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, where he initially focused on heavy ion reactions. He he habilitated in Hamburg in 1971 and in 1973 in Heidelberg. Since 1980 he is professor at the University of Heidelberg.

Klapdor - Kleingrothaus deals among other things with nuclear astrophysics, and with the weak interaction in nuclear physics ( double beta decay ). Since 1987, he directed the Heidelberg - Moscow experiment, which was conducted from 1990 to 2003 in the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso near Rome. This experiment is still the most sensitive experiment of this kind Next, he headed the HDMS experiment (Heidelberg Dark Matter Search ) to search for dark matter in the Gran Sasso laboratory in 1999.

He was Speaker of the GENIUS experiment searching for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay since 1997. A prototype experiment this was carried out from 2003 to 2006 at the Gran Sasso.

In 2001, his group claimed a first indication of neutrinoless double beta decay in the Heidelberg - Moscow experiment to have observed. The full data gave a significance of 6.4 standard deviations, and correspond to a half-life of the isotope germanium -76 of more than 1025 years. This result would be of fundamental importance for particle physics, it should be confirmed by other experiments. Loser neutrino double beta decay is only possible with violation of lepton number, and if the neutrino is a Majorana particle.

In 1982, he received together with Wolfgang Hillebrandt the Physics Prize of the German Physical Society for " his work on the critical importance of structures in the beta strength function for the synthesis of heavy elements in the cosmos ." In 1994 he became a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1998 and 2005 he received each a physics prize of JINR in Dubna, Russia - 1998 for his work on "Physics Beyond Standard Model in rare Processes and Energy in Cosmology " and 2005 for his work on "Looking for SUSY Dark Matter". He has published about 360 scientific papers and 30 books.

Books (selection)

• Publisher: Weak and electromagnetic interactions in nuclei, Springer, Heidelberg, 1986
• Publisher: neutrinos, Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics, Springer, Heidelberg, 1988
• With K. Grotz: The weak interaction in nuclear, particle and astrophysics, Teubner, Stuttgart, 1989 ( English edition IOP, Bristol, 1990; Russian edition MIR, Moscow, 1992; Chinese edition Shandong, Jinan 1998)
• With A. Staudt: particle physics without accelerators, Teubner, Stuttgart, 1995 ( English translation of Non Accelerator Particle Physics, IOP, Bristol, 1995, 2nd edition 1998, Russian edition, Nauka, Moscow 1997)
• Editor with S. Stoica: Double beta decay and related topics, World Scientific, Singapore, 1996
• Kai Zuber: Particle Astrophysics, Teubner, Stuttgart 1997 ( English Particle Astrophysics IOP, Bristol 1997, 2nd edition 1999, Russian edition, Uspechi Fisicheskich Nauk, Moscow 2000)
• Sixty years of double beta decay, World Scientific, Singapore, 2001
• Seventy years of double beta decay - From Nuclear Physics to Physics beyond the Standard Model, World Scientific, Singapore, 2010, 1520 pages