The vastness of the Universe is incomprehensible

That's me

Since November 2017 I am a postdoctoral associate at the Dr. Karl Remeis observatory. My main tasks are the ongoing development of the SIXTE simulator for X-ray telescopes and the data processing pipeline for the eROSITA instrument on-board the Russian-German Spektrum-Röntgen-Gamma (SRG) spacecraft.

In July 2018 I finished my PhD in physics at the Friedrich-Alexander-University. The topic of my Phd thesis is accreting neutron stars in X-ray binaries. In particular I simulated the influence of general relativistic effects, such as light bending, on observational data of these objects.

Scientific work

Image: NASA

Massive, dense, strongly magnetized, and eating stars alive

Accreting neutron stars

These remnants of dying massive stars are the densest objects with a solid surface we know of in the universe. Additionally they exhibit the strongest magnetic fields we have ever observed. In binary systems they accrete matter from their companion star and release its gravitational energy by emitting X-rays.

The high compactness of neutron stars requires to account for general relativistic effects, like light bending, when deriving physical statements from observational data.

Image: DLR

Seeing the universe with X-ray eyes

X-ray telescopes

The universe is visible throughout the whole electromagnetic spectrum, each range revealing different astrophysical phenomena. Accreting neutron stars, for example, are mostly visible in the X-rays. (Un)Fortunately X-rays are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere and therefore we rely on X-ray telescopes in space to be able to observe them.