Allen Caldwell is one of currently seven directors of the

Max Planck Institute for Physics The Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is a research institute located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. It specializes in high energy physics and astroparticle physics. The MPP is part of the Max Planck Society and is also known as the We ...

. He became director in 2002.

Early life and education

Allen Caldwell was born in

Verdun Verdun ( , ; ; ; official name before 1970: Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city in the Meuse (department), Meuse departments of France, department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department. In 843, the Treaty of V ...

, France in 1959 and has dual US and French citizenship. He studied physics first at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

in Texas (USA), later at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, where he also received his doctorate.

Career

He spent the following 15 years at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

primarily pursuing research into proton structure and related topics. In 2002 he joined the

as a director. Since 2004 he has been involved in the search for neutrino less double beta decay. His current accelerator research activities focus on plasma Wakefield acceleration. AWAKE, a demonstration experiment, is under preparation in

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

. Caldwell also takes a keen interested in probability, statistics and data analysis techniques and teaches these subjects at TUM. He has been managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics since April 2012. In his work, Caldwell is primarily concerned with the development of new particle accelerator technologies based on and with the investigation of

quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei ...

s and

gluon A gluon ( ) is a type of Massless particle, massless elementary particle that mediates the strong interaction between quarks, acting as the exchange particle for the interaction. Gluons are massless vector bosons, thereby having a Spin (physi ...

s and their interactions. In addition, there is research into the fundamental properties of neutrinos and the search for new dark matter candidates – the

axions An axion () is a hypothetical elementary particle originally theorized in 1978 independently by Frank Wilczek and Steven Weinberg as the Goldstone boson of Peccei–Quinn theory, which had been proposed in 1977 to solve the strong CP problem in ...

. He is also particularly interested in probability calculations and statistical methods: he gives lectures on data analysis techniques and

Monte Carlo method Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be ...

s at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

Research priorities

Caldwell is concerned with the study of the fundamental building blocks of matter, their properties and their interactions. He is involved in the following research projects: * The

AWAKE Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world. Being awake is the opposite of being asleep, in which ...

experiment - acceleration with plasma waves (CERN) * MADMAX: Search for axions as dark matter * LEGEND: the nature of the neutrino (LNGS, Italy) * The Belle II Experiment (KEK, Japan)

Offices

* Representative of the Max Planck Society in the Committee for Particle Physics (KET, since 2018) * International Review Committee, Canadian Institute of Particle Physics (2016) * Advisory member, DIS and Related Topics (since 2007) * Scientific Advisory Board, Annals of Physics * Member of the Perspectives Commission of the CPT Section of the Max Planck Society (since 2012)

Functions

* Spokesperson, AWAKE Collaboration (since 2012) * Director, Max Planck Institute for Physics (since 2002) * Professor, Columbia University, New York (2002-2003) * Director, Nevis Laboratories (1999-2002) * Spokesperson, ZEUS Collaboration (1997-1999)

Awards

* Distinguished Alumnus Award, U. Wisconsin (2012) * Fellow of the American Physical Society (2000) * Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (1995)

Publications

Acceleration of electrons in the plasma wakefield of a proton bunch; AWAKE Collaboration (E. Adli (Oslo U.) et al.). Aug 29, 2018. 5 pp. Published in Nature 561 (2018) no.7723, 363-367 Is the bump significant? An axion-search example; Frederik Beaujean (Munich, Tech. U., Universe), Allen Caldwell, Olaf Reimann (Munich, Max Planck Inst.). Oct 18, 2017. 18 pp. Published in Eur.Phys.J. C78 (2018) no.9, 793 Global Bayesian analysis of neutrino mass data; Allen Caldwell, Alexander Merle, Oliver Schulz, Maximilian Totzauer (Munich, Max Planck Inst.). May 4, 2017. 15 pp.; Published in Phys.Rev. D96 (2017) no.7, 073001 Dielectric Haloscopes: A New Way to Detect Axion Dark Matter; MADMAX Working Group (Allen Caldwell (Munich, Max Planck Inst.) et al.). Nov 17, 2016. 6 pp.; Published in Phys.Rev.Lett. 118 (2017) no.9, 091801

References

Max Planck Society people Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Max Planck Institute directors {{Germany-physicist-stub