Welcome to the PANDA Experiment Website

The PANDA Experiment will be one of the key experiments at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) which is under construction and currently being built on the area of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany. The central part of FAIR is a synchrotron complex providing intense pulsed ion beams (from p to U). Antiprotons produced by a primary proton beam will then be filled into the High Energy Storage Ring (HESR) which collide with the fixed target inside the PANDA Detector.

The PANDA Collaboration with more than 420 scientist from 18 countries intends to do basic physics research on various topics around the weak and strong forces, exotic states of matter and the structure of hadrons. In order to gather all the necessary information from the antiproton-proton collisions a versatile detector will be build being able to provide precise trajectory reconstruction, energy and momentum measurements and very efficient identification of charged particles

Currently the collaboration with Russian Institutes is suspended. For details see statement from GSI.

Johann Zmeskal (1955 - 2024) - a calming pole in experiments


Dr. Johann Zmeskal

Hannes Zmeskal passed away on July 23, 2024 after a short severe disease. With Hannes we lose an unparalleled experienced researcher in the field of exotic atoms and experimental low-energy hadron physics. His work manifested in many important publications. He was a driving force in experiments on muon/pion experiments and low-energy kaon nuclear physics. His success in acquiring third party funding is remarkable – he was principal investigator in projects of the Austrian Science Fund and in the European research activities like Strong2020.
There is a possibility of expressing condolences online.

I know him since 1980 when I joined a research group at Paul Scherrer Institute (SIN at this time) in Switzerland.  Johann Zmeskal was a specialist of all kind of cryogenic targets and detector systems used in experiments on muon catalyzed fusion, the nuclear  fusion is resulting from the strong binding of 
two deuterons or deuteron-triton using a negatively charged muon which is released after the fusion process with a high probability and can start another fusion cycle. The finding of hyperfine effects in the molecular formation was topic of his PhD work - a big success and it is published in Phys. Rev. A.
He was member of many Collaborations like SIDDHARTA, ASACUSA and PANDA. In the PANDA experiment he contributed to the target system from the beginning but he was also working on the time-of-flight system. Due to his experience in cryogenic and ultrahigh vacuum systems he contributed to low-energy antiproton physics in experiment at the antimatter facility of CERN.
He was a leading figure in the experiments DEAR, SIDDHARTA and SIDDHARTA2 at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of INFN from the beginning of the electron-positron collider DAFNE operation.
Hannes Zmeskal was finally co-spokesperson of the very successful SIDDHARTA2 experiment on kaonic deuterium which is after the kaon-hydrogen experiment a key experiment to study the strong interaction at lowest energies  in an exotic atom with strangeness.
Hannes Zmeskal with his patient, kind and optimistic nature was always a calming pole in any of his many experiments. It has to be highlighted that Hannes was an extremely good mentor for a new generation of researchers.
Loved by all who knew him, he will be missed.

Johann Marton

Carlo Guaraldo (1938 - 2024) - a key figure of LNF


Prof. Dr. Carlo Guaraldo at the office

With great sadness we have received the message, that Carlo Guaraldo passed away.
He was a great hadron physicist and one like nobody else who was building bridges between people and who paved the way into the future.
We will miss him vey much and keep his memory.

Carlo Guaraldo (1938-2024) was a key figure and a pillar of the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF) of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), as well as of the European hadronic physics community.

Born in Torino, Guaraldo studied physics at Sapienza University in Rome, and his scientific interest was the understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). 

He began his scientific career in the 1960s at the Frascati Laboratories, where he investigated the nuclear structure by studying pion scattering on various nuclei and a wide range of photoreactions. He eventually became the head of the local facility LEALE (Laboratorio Esperienze Acceleratore Lineare Elettroni) where these activities were conducted.

A member of the Torino-Frascati-Dubna collaboration (TOFRADUP) and leader of the ALFA3 project, Guaraldo started participating in experiments at the CERN Low Energy Antiproton Ring in the 1980s. He was involved in PS179 and later in the OBELIX (PS201) experiment, where he and Tullio Bressani from Torino University served as spokesmen. The OBELIX experiment aimed to conduct spectroscopy of exclusive hadronic states produced via antiproton and antineutron interactions under various conditions. Guaraldo was a driving force in the collaboration, proposing several research lines including Pontecorvo reactions and exotic hadron spectroscopy, with particular interest in the H-dibaryon and the E/iota resonance.

In the 1990s, Guaraldo supported the realization of the DAFNE complex. He played a crucial role in defining the scientific program for the new facility and, along with Bressani, secured approval for a nuclear physics program at DAFNE, initially intended solely for CP-violation and fundamental symmetries studies. After contributing to the approval of the FINUDA experiment (Fisica NUcleare a DAfne), he shifted focus to establish a new research line: the study of kaonic atoms. This research has been enduring, extending the scientific life of the facility to the present days. Guaraldo served as spokesperson for the DEAR and SIDDHARTA experiments, which achieved the world most precise measurements on kaonic atoms.

At the turn of the millennium, Guaraldo was a pioneer in promoting cooperative efforts across the hadron physics community. He initiated and led a series of successful projects funded by the EU commission, coordinating the HadronPhysics, HadronPhysics2, and HadronPhysics3 initiatives from 2004 to 2014. These projects provided open access to six world-class experimental facilities (COSY, MAMI, LNF, ELSA, GSI/FAIR, and CERN) and the European Centre for Theoretical Physics ECT* in Trento, fostering new developments in hadron physics. This was certainly the most complex and challenging managerial activity Carlo Guaraldo pursued, but having been involved in many other important committees, he was well trained for this role.

Guaraldo's extensive managerial experience included serving on the INFN Management Board, the Program Advisory Committee of FZ Jülich, and the executive board of the DIRAC (PS212) CERN experiment. He was involved in financial working groups for the FAIR project in Darmstadt and the X-FEL project in Hamburg, and held roles in cooperative activities between INFN and various international organizations such as the Institute for Nuclear Physics (INP) in Novosibirsk, the Moscow Meson Factory Troizk, the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) in Moscow, and the Institute for Research and Development for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH) in Bucharest.

Beyond his professional achievements, Carlo Guaraldo was known as a kind and friendly person with broad cultural interests. Curious and open-minded, he was a mountain lover and a tenacious cyclist. His presence will be missed, along with the coffee he made with his own moka machine for visitors to his office.

Paola Gianotti

PANDA PhD Prize 2023


Anna Alicke received the PANDA PhD Prize 2023
during the Collaboration Meeting in Münster


The PANDA PhD Prize 2023 was awarded to Anna Alicke (FZ Jülich/Germany) for her thesis “Development of fast track finding algorithms for densely packed straw tube trackers and its application to Ξ hyperon reconstruction for the PANDA experiment". In the course of her thesis, she developed two new tracking algorithms and combined these primary and secondary trackers to achieve the highest efficiency, which was tested on reactions with multiple secondary vertices. But the algorithm can also be used for other densely packed straw tube trackers. The prize was presented by the spokesperson during the PANDA Collaboration Dinner in Münster on March 6, 2024.

The Panda Collaboration has awarded the PhD Prize once per year since 2013 in order to honor the best dissertation written in connection with the Panda Experiment. In her dissertation, Physicist Anna Alicke studied hyperon production and reactions within the Panda detector, which is being built at the FAIR accelerator facility.

The Panda Collaboration awards the PhD Prize to specifically honor students’ contributions to the Panda project. Candidates for the PhD Prize are nominated by their doctoral advisors. In addition to being directly related to the Panda Experiment, the nominees’ doctoral degrees must have received a rating of “very good” or better. Up to three candidates are shortlisted for the award and can present their dissertations at the Panda Collaboration meeting. The winner is chosen by a committee that is appointed for this task by the Panda Collaboration.

Book of Condolences for Helmut Koch


Prof. Dr. Helmut Koch at the Collaboration
Meeting 2018, where he received the
PANDA Lifetime Membership Award.

On April 8th, 2024 our friend, colleague, teacher and mentor Helmut Koch has died. 

It was a shocking moment for many of us when we realized that Helmut Koch is no longer with us. We learnt so much from him and knew him as an excellent scientist, teacher, mentor, leader and a very friendly person. We will always remember him for his gentle, human nature and for his numerous contributions to the field of hadron physics.

Many of us have stories with or about him to share or just want to express their feelings and thoughts.

Therefore we prepared an online Book of Condolences which we want to hand over at the end to his wife.

Please, slow down your daily routine for a moment and share some memories with us. You can do so very easily if you are logged in: Just follow this link. If you have photos from Helmut Koch, you can share them as well. They will be visible by PANDA users only, whereas the condolence text is readable for anybody. 

In case of technical problems, please contact Udo.   

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