Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Bastian Märkisch

Courses and Dates

Offered Bachelor’s or Master’s Theses Topics

Design of a Scintillation Detector with Drift Monitoring via a Pulser System

The Proton and Electron Radiation Channel (PERC) facility, currently being set up at the FRM II, aims to measure the beta-asymmetry in neutron decay an order of magnitude more precisely to determine parameters of the Standard Model and to search for new physics beyond it. A system of superconducting coils guides the decay products towards the detector systems. PERC has one primary, downstream detector system and a secondary system located upstream, that will identify events with backscattered electrons from the primary detector. At first, the primary detector will be based on a fast plastic scintillator and photomultiplier tubes, similar to the detectors of previous experiments. Calibrating the detectors is a key factor in achieving the precision aimed at. Radioactive sources with mono-energetic electrons serve for the calibration. A pulser system continuously monitors the detector’s drift with short, controlled light pulses. The pulser system, which includes a Kapustinsky pulser, a silicon photomultiplier and temperature sensors, is being controlled via an Arduino. Within this project, the student will design and assemble the first primary detector for PERC and commission it including the pulser system. The performance of the detector will studied, including simulations based on Geant4.

suitable as

• Master’s Thesis Applied and Engineering Physics

Supervisor: Bastian Märkisch

Modeling of the FRM II core

highly enriched uranium (HEU) to lower enriched uranium. This program is part of worldwide efforts to minimize the usage of HEU in research reactors. For this reason, a parameter study is set up in order to identify possible and compatible FRM II core designs for conversion. The working group “Reactor Physics” at FRM II is actively working on developing new core designs for the conversion of the FRM II. In order to reach the goal of a core with the lowest enrichment possible, a parameter study is set up that aims to identify possible and compatible FRM II core designs. As a first essential step, several 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes for use in high performance research reactors are available to perform a code-to-code verification based on experimental results. Within this thesis, the potential of Ansys Fluent for the FRM II core will be explored. You will get familiar with the physics of modelling fluids with the Navier-Stokes equation, the intricacies of the simulation program and the FRM II core. You will develop and verify suitable postprocessing tools and compare results by Fluent and Ansys CFX.

suitable as

• Master’s Thesis Applied and Engineering Physics

Supervisor: Bastian Märkisch

Optical pulser system for detector calibration

The Proton and Electron Radiation Channel (PERC) facility, currently being set up at the FRM II, aims to measure the beta-asymmetry in neutron decay an order of magnitude more precisely to determine parameters of the Standard Model and to search for new physics beyond it. A system of superconducting coils guides the decay products towards the detector systems. Calibrating the detectors is a key factor in achieving the precision aimed at. Radioactive sources with mono-energetic electrons serve for the calibration. A pulser system continuously monitors the detector’s drift with short, controlled light pulses. The pulser system, which includes a Kapustinsky pulser, a silicon photomultiplier and temperature sensors, is being controlled via an Arduino. Within this project, with the pulser system be put into operation, the communication with the system will be programmed and the system properties of it will be characterized in the laboratory.

suitable as

• Bachelor’s Thesis Physics

Supervisor: Bastian Märkisch