International conference about the Universe with gamma rays, in the Faculty of Physics

Felix Aharonian, scientist born in Armenia and trained in the old Soviet Union, is member of the Max Planck Society and head of the High Energy Astrophysics Theory Group, at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg. He is member of several international scientific organizations; and he has received different awards, for example the prestigious Bruno Rossi prize for its scientific work.

Aharonian keeps a strong scientific relationship with the UB, especially with the group led by Josep M. Paredes, professor at the Department of Astronomy and Meteorology. Within this collaboration, some exchanges between researchers from Heidelberg and Dublin centers have been done. In addition, some PhD students have benefited from grants and postdoctoral contracts in those centres.

The work developed by Aharonian has been determinant in the astronomical field of gamma rays, from an experimental point of view, as well as from an observation and theoretical ones. In the eighties, he led a group on astronomy of gamma rays in the Yerevan State University (Armenia). Later, when he was already at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, he was a distinguished member of HEGRA, an experiment that built and operated a Cherenkov observation instrument in the form of a stereoscope to detect gamma rays; Aharonian was one of the promoters this invention together with HESS. He works with galactic and extragalactic objects, and he has performed an accurate systematization task for the study of gamma sources and a detailed characterization of the most important radiation processes. He has also worked together with a great number of prestigious international scientists.