New Professor at JSC: Kalman Szabo

Theoretical physicist Kalman Szabo was recently appointed professor at JSC and the University of Wuppertal ("Jülicher Modell"). The professorship is funded by the recruit initiative of the Helmholtz Association. His field of expertise is numerical simulations in elementary particle physics. With the development of teraflop computers about ten years ago, a new era started in this field. It has now become possible to answer previously inaccessible questions about the strong interaction. For example, Szabo and his collaborators calculated the temperature, at which ordinary matter consisting of protons and neutrons disintegrates into its elementary constituents, and they also computed the order of this transition. They were the first research group to show that the currently accepted theory of the strong interaction properly accounts for the mass of the proton. This was a precision calculation, where percent level accuracy was required. With increasing computational capacity, it is now possible to tackle problems requiring per-mill level precision, which is Szabo's current research focus. His appointment will strengthen the link between JSC and the University of Wuppertal and help in recruiting talented young people for fundamental physics research. Further information about Szabo's research group: http://www.bmw.uni-wuppertal.de