Hannah Elfner (born Hannah Petersen; October 12, 1982) is a German physicist who is Head of Simulations at the
Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and Professor of Physics at the
Goethe University Frankfurt
Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...
. She was named the 2021 Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation Scientist of the Year.
Early life and education
Hannah Petersen was a physics student at the
Goethe University Frankfurt
Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...
. She graduated in 2006, and remained at Goethe for her doctoral research supported by
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom was ...
. Her doctoral research involved an integrated Boltzmann approach to the collisions of heavy ions. Heavy ion conditions give rise to a strongly interacting state matter known as the
quark–gluon plasma
Quark–gluon plasma (QGP) or quark soup is an interacting localized assembly of quarks and gluons at thermal (local kinetic) and (close to) chemical (abundance) equilibrium. The word ''plasma'' signals that free color charges are allowed. In a ...
, which is similar to the matter founded in the moments following the
Big Bang
The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...
.
Within this phase, the plasma expands explosively at extremely high pressure.
Petersen was amongst the first researchers to recognise that the pathway of these explosions was impacted by density and temperature.
After earning her doctorate she joined
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
as a
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Rese ...
Feodor Lynen fellow.
Research and career
Elfner develops dynamical computation simulations to better understand high energy conditions and the
quark–gluon plasma
Quark–gluon plasma (QGP) or quark soup is an interacting localized assembly of quarks and gluons at thermal (local kinetic) and (close to) chemical (abundance) equilibrium. The word ''plasma'' signals that free color charges are allowed. In a ...
. She became interested in the influence of the initial and final states on the trajectory of
heavy ion collisions.
To quantitatively evaluate the impact of these boundary conditions, she adopted an event-by-event strategy that makes use of transport theory.
She developed a hadronic transport approach known as SMASH (Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-interacting Hadrons). SMASH is part of the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
JETSCAPE framework. Her model predicted that the dynamics and viscosity of the plasma depends on the initial state and any quantum fluctuations.
In 2011, Elfner was appointed a Visiting Professor at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
where she was based in the
quantum chromodynamics
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type ...
group.
She decided to return to Germany because of the creation of the accelerator FAIR (
Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research
The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international accelerator facility under construction which will use antiprotons and ions to perform research in the fields of: nuclear, hadron and particle physics, atomic and anti-matt ...
).
She was appointed a Helmholtz Young Investigator in 2012, and a research Fellow at the
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
The Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) is a private-public institution for basic theoretical research in various areas of science
focusing on interdisciplinary research. It is located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, at its own home at ...
the following year. She was one of the youngest researchers to ever be appointed Professor in Germany.
Elfner was made Head of Simulations at the Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in 2018.
Awards and honors
* 2016
German Research Foundation
The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...
Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize
* 2018 Quark Matter Zimanyi Medal
* 2021 Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation Scientist of the Year
Selected publications
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elfner, Hannah
1982 births
Duke University fellows
German women physicists
Goethe University Frankfurt alumni
Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt
Living people
21st-century German physicists