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 read the statement from GSI.
Dr. Hans-Georg Zaunick (Picture from AG Brinkmann, JLU)
Dear PANDAs,
Hans-Georg Zaunick passed away unexpectedly on July 19, 2026 at an age of 47.
Hans was a PANDA throughout his career, starting from his diploma thesis in Dresden and his PhD in Bonn on the MVD in 2013 to his leading role in the EMC in and from Giessen. He was an expert in detector physics, hardware, and instrumentation while in parallel pursuing a wide spectrum of projects in astrophysics as well as medical and space applications, often with partners outside of our community. His advice will be missed, as will be his pleasant and calm demeanor. We have lost an excellent scientist, co-worker, advisor, and friend.
Our thoughts are with his family.
I got to know Hans as a student at TU Dresden. When I started a group there that was set to contribute to PANDA, he was one of the students who contributed and his diploma thesis was on early studies for the PANDA MVD. When we moved to Bonn, he decided to come along and pursue a PhD with further contributions to PANDA and the MVD. After the successful defense of his seminal thesis, which covered much of what was to go into the technical design report for the MVD, we started to set up shop on Giessen. While developing the technical capabilities for silicon detector handling, he also assumed an important position for the electromagnetic calorimeter, eventually taking over the leading role in crystal assessment, prototyping, construction, and readout of the EMC barrel and other components. His contributions to PANDA are many. He grew into an independent scientist, advising students throughout their thesis work, maintaining laboratories, and developing instrumentation for applications as well as basic detector physics whenever and wherever needed. In parallel, his reliable handling of the lab class for medical students and the course on applications of nuclear instrumentation took up a significant fraction of his time. Yet, he found the time to develop many additional activities in citizen science and outreach. Many of these revolve around astrophysics and astronomy, a pastime of Hans that he brought from the public observatory in Radebeul, where he had contributed in his school days. He made cosmic ray detectors available for schools and everyone else interested in the MuonPi project, developed a series of instrumented weather balloon flights, lab courses for school classes with and without Netzwerk Teilchenwelt, and tended to interns on a regular basis. His pleasant demeanor and unobtrusive expertise made him an asset to any discussion and a team leader. I am grateful for the time we were allowed to work as a team and the opportunity to see him grow from a student in my group into an independent senior scientist. We will miss him.
Please, slow down your daily routine for a moment and share some memories with us. You can do so easily if you are logged in: Just follow this link. If you have photos from Hans-Georg, you can share them as well. They will be visible for PANDA users only, whereas the condolence text is readable for anybody.
In case of technical problems, please contact Udo.
During our online collaboration meeting in May this year the collaboration board endorsed one candidate for the position of our spokesperson and one candidate for the deputy position.
The Vote on the PANDA Spokesperson and PANDA Deputy Spokesperson takes took place electronically in May/June according to the PANDA Governance Rules.
The electorate are all official members of PANDA with a university degree and a PANDA membership of at least one year as reported by the institute heads.
Please note that a quorum of 50% of registered voter has to be reached for the election to be valid.
Instructions for voting
To vote, access the PANDA Vote form on this site by logging in using your personal GSI web login.
To the vote. Vote ended!
If you are not already logged in, follow the link above and you will be asked for your user credentials and on successful login you will be redirected to the ballot page. If you are already logged in, you can access the polls via menu item "Ballot paper" as well.
Please vote between May 19th 2025, 00:00h CEST and June 10th 2025, 24:00h CEST. Before and after that period the link given above will not work.
You have then accessed the ballot page, where you can could have marked your individual vote for the candidates endorsed by the Collaboration Board (options: accept, non-accept, abstain).
Your vote is anonymous. You can only vote once.
In case of technical problems contact the PANDA office.
The award was announced at the most recent Panda Collaboration meeting at GSI, Darmstadt and handed over to Dr. Roberto Bruschini (with certificate) by the spokesperson of the Panda Collaboration Prof Klaus Peters (left) and the chair of the Theory Adisory Group Prof Christian Fischer (right), University Giessen, Germany, during a dinner ceremony.
Dr. Bruschini used Coupled-Channel Schrödinger Equations in adiabatic and diabatic forms for Charmonium-like Mesons below and above threshold. The diabatic Born-Oppenheimer approximation allows for a unified study of conventional and exotic charmonium-like mesons, which has a great impact to the PANDA physics program.
The Panda Collaboration awards the Theory PhD Prize to specifically honor students’ contributions related 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.
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.
