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Fig. 1:
Prize winner Florian Hanke (second from left) with his supervisor Hans-
Thomas Janka, MPA director Simon White and Ewald Müller as
representative of the selection committee.
© H.-A. Arnolds, MPA
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Fig. 2:
Prize winner Francesco de Gasperin (left) with MPA director Simon White,
his supervisor, MPA director Guinevere Kauffmann and Ewald Müller as
representative of the selection committee.
© H.-A. Arnolds, MPA
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Florian Hanke started to work on a generalization of the existing
core-collapse supernova
simulation code to three spatial dimensions. Intended to be a learning
experience of the code and supernova physics, he tried to reproduce the
results of a competing group, which had claimed –based on a simplified
setup– that 3D explosions develop
considerably easier, faster, and more energetically than in two
dimensions. However, despite very careful and tedious tests he could
not confirm the findings of the other group. His paper immediately
received very wide attention (with nearly 70 citations so far) and
seeded a controversy; meanwhile several other groups have confirmed
the validity of Florian’s results. This demonstrates that in science
progress is not only linked to fast and prominent publication of new
findings but also to tedious and careful verification tests – this
kind of work should be valued much more than it often is.
Atypical for a paper selected for the Kippenhahn prize, Francesco is
the first author of 96. He works with LOFAR data, a project that
involves a large consortium of astronomers from many different
institutions and countries. When Francesco entered the LOFAR data
pipeline team, the infrastructure did not exist yet but with the help
of colleagues from the Netherlands, he threw himself into the centre
of the project and quickly became a knowledgeable technical expert
himself. He was awarded significant time during the early
commissioning phase to observe the centre of the Virgo cluster, which
harbours a supermassive black hole. Francesco’s observations placed
important constraints on past activity of this active nucleus and his
detailed spectral analysis of the extended radio-halo showed that a
continuous injection of relativistic electrons into the intra-cluster
medium is the model that best fits the data - the first significant
science result to emerge from the LOFAR project. As a "pioneer",
Francesco was willing to face great struggles and the real possibility
of failure – LOFAR is now set to produce great science.
Regrettably, former MPA-director Rudolph Kippenhahn, the donor of the
prize, could not be at the institute in person for the ceremony on
20th September but congratulated the laureates from afar. Established
in 2008, the prize recognises originality, impact on science and the
quality of writing for the best scientific paper written by a student
at MPA during the previous year.
Original publications:
Florian Hanke, Andreas Marek, Bernhard Müller, and Hans-Thomas Janka,
"Is strong SASI activity the key to successful neutrino-driven supernova explosions?",
The Astrophysical Journal 755 (2012) 138
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4355
F. de Gasperin, et al.,
"M87 at metre wavelengths: the LOFAR picture",
Astronomy & Astrophysics 547 (2012) A56
http://de.arxiv.org/abs/1210.1346
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