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What we do

At present, our research focuses almost exclusively on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment operating at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its future upgrades, taking leading roles both in physics analysis and future detector upgrades.

The data analyses activities focus on the characterization of the Higgs boson in the final states with photons and b-quarks in the final state, and search for SuperSymmetry with hadronic and leptonic final states.The hardware activities revolve around the Phase-2 upgrades of the CMS pixel detector upgrade, R&D for future trackers (DMAPS and diamonds), and basic R&D for calorimetry for the Phase-2 upgrade.

The long-term plan is to broaden this research program as soon as the way to a new international high-luminosity/high-energy collider facility will become clear.

Wallny’s group is also committed to strongly contribute to the teaching mission of the department, providing a well-balanced portfolio of large propaedeutic (lower division) courses as well as Master’s and PhD level classes. We also take an active role in outreach and the promotion of science towards the public as important aspect of our teaching mandate.

D-PHYS News

An ammonia trail to exoplanets

With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers including members from the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics at ETH Zurich measured ammonia in the atmosphere of a cold brown dwarf, showing that the isotopic abundance of ammonia can be used to study how giant gas planets form.

07.11.2023

Optical solitons go terahertz

In a feat of optical waveguide engineering, researchers from the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich have successfully observed terahertz solitons in a ring quantum cascade laser.

04.07.2023

Challenging quantum mechanics with a crystal

Researchers at ETH have put a crystal into a quantum superposition state and measured for how long quantum effects in the vibrations of the crystal lasted. Such measurements are important for putting bounds on possible modifications of quantum theory that could explain why we do not see quantum features in everyday life.

31.03.2023

Magnetic matchmaking under the microscope

The image show two black spheres representing holes in an ordered magnetic array of spins illustrated with compasses.

Experimentalists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching (Germany), in close collaboration with theoretical physicist Eugene Demler at ETH Zurich, observed for the first time in microscopic detail how magnetic correlations mediate the pairing of quantum entities known as holes. The work establishes an intriguing platform for exploring theoretical models of high-temperature superconductivity — and might guide future efforts for designing novel quantum materials.

18.01.2023

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D-PHYS Events

All events at ETH Zurich are cancelled until the end of August.

Further information

Information on planned events can be found in the following pages, but we recommend to refer for most current information to the websites of the respective event organisers:

Additional Information

We perform particle physics at the high-energy frontier and tackle outstanding questions of Particle Physics, such as the elucidation of the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the particle origin of dark matter. We operate the present detectors and prepare the future ones. We teach physics to the next generation of scientists.

Prof. R. Wallny studied physics at the Universities of Tübingen (Germany), Washington (Seattle, M.Sc., 1994) and Heidelberg (Diplom, 1996). He received his PhD degree in Physics from the University of Zürich. From 2001 to 2003, he held a CERN Research Fellow position working on the ATLAS Semiconductor Tracker. From 2003 to 2010, he was a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving tenure in 2008 and promotion to full professor in 2010. He joined D-PHYS in 2010 as full professor. His group plays a leading role in CMS high-p_T physics analyses and in the upgrade of the CMS pixel detector.