Latest News

An international group of researchers, led by Brian Hare and Olaf Scholten from KVI-CART have discovered new structures on positively charged lightning leaders. These can explain why lightning often discharges a few times along the same channel. See https://www.rug.nl/news/2019/04/why-lightning-often-strikes-twice for a more complete account.

Proton therapy is a way to irradiate certain cancer patients more effectively and accurately. At KVI-CART, Peter Dendooven and colleagues develop in-beam positron emission tomography (PET) of very short-lived isotopes to enable real-time monitoring of proton therapy.

Zpannend Zernike: Backstage in the wondrous world of science and technology

Op woensdag 5 september wordt er in de uitzending van het programma Focus op NPO2 om 20:45 "Door de bliksem getroffen" ondermeer aandacht besteed aan het onderzoek dat op KVI-CART wordt gedaan door Brian Hare en Olaf Scholten waarbij LOFAR wordt gebruikt om de ontwikkeling van bliksem beter te begrijpen.

On June 23rd 2018 Louis Put deceased at the age of 81. After having obtained his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, he continued his scientific career at the Physics Department of the University of Groningen and then moved together with the team headed by Prof. Brinkman to the newly established Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut at the campus of the University of Groningen.

ERC Grants awarded to Julia Even

By royal resolution Nasser Kalantar-Nayestanaki has been appointed Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on April 26.

The neutrino telescope KM3NeT has received in the framework of the NWO Roadmap for scientific research infrastructures a grant of 12.7 million euro received as a contribution for the investments in this telescope under construction in the Mediterranean Sea.

With the appointment of the Rosalind Franklin Fellow Dr. Manuela Vecchi at KVI-CART, the University of Groningen recently became part of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), a cosmic rays detector operating aboard the International Space Station.

The ancient alchemists dreamed of turning lead into gold. But nuclear physicist Nasser Kalantar -Nayestanaki has other dreams: he wants to know how 82 protons and 126 neutrons stick together to form the nucleus of a lead atom. He has been chasing this dream at the KVI-CART research institute of the University of Groningen for well over twenty years.

The Dutch radio telescope LOFAR, which fans out over a large part of Europe from the Northern Netherlands, is able to observe the creation of lightning flashes. An international scientific team, with a leading role for University of Groningen physicists Brian Hare and Olaf Scholten, shows that LOFAR can detect the developing flashes at an unprecedented one-metre resolution.

On 1 March 2018 the Integrating Activity INSPIRE (INfraStructure in Proton International REsearch, funded by the EU-HORIZON2020 with a total of 5 million Euro, will take off. In INSPIRE KVI-CART collaborates with fourteen proton therapy centers all over Europe and two major manufacturers of proton therapy equipment on research to further improve proton therapy.

On 17 December 2017 our colleague prof. dr. Anne Paans passed away at the age of 73.

The University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) has announced that following a long development path it has started treating cancer patients with proton therapy.

On December 14th 2017 Bernd Taenzer deceased at the age of 74.

KVI-CART PhD student Ikechi Ozoemelam is featured in the latest issue of ENLIGHT HIGHLIGHTS following the poster prize he won at the ENLIGHT Annuam Meeting in June this year.

Bij het Kapteyn Instituut zijn de afgelopen 14 jaar twee van de tien ontvanger types voor het ALMA (almaobservatory.org) project ontwikkeld en geproduceerd: Band 5 en Band 9, 75 stuks van elk type. Deze ontvangers zijn gevoelig voor sub-mm straling, ofwel THz straling.
Band 9 is in 2011 uitgeleverd en de ontvangers doen het goed. Intussen heeft de NOVA/Kapteyn groep gewerkt aan een verbeterde versie ervan. Voor de uitwerking van deze ideeën in 3D-CAD is contact gezocht met constructeurs van de afdeling werktuigbouwkunde van KVI-CART.

In an interview in the november issue of the newsletter of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) (http://newsletter.estro.be/2017/2017NovemberDecember/07-Radiobiology_4.html) Professor Sytze Brandenburg of KVI-CART presents among other things the plans for a state-of-the-art experimental facility for radiobiology research related to particle therapy of cancers at the KVI-CART AGOR cyclotron.

Last Friday, the KVI-Center for Advanced Radiation Technology celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the particle accelerator “AGOR” with a symposium: AGOR: the next 20 years!

The KVI-Center for Advanced Radiation Technology (KVI-CART) at the University of Groningen has again secured international funding for experiments with the AGOR particle accelerator. The AGOR facility was put into operation twenty years ago.

In a paper published in Science on 22 September, the Pierre Auger Collaboration reports observational evidence demonstrating that cosmic rays with energies a million times greater than that of the protons accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider come from much further away than from our own Galaxy.

Prof. Nasser Kalantar-Nayestanaki has been elected as a member of the Academia Europaea (http://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Kalantar-Nayestanaki_Nasser) for his life-long scientific achievements.

A delegation of scientists and engineers from GSI visited KVI-CART on the 13th and 14th of September to meet with the team in charge of the conceptual design of the target station of the Super-FRS at FAIR.

On 20 august 2017 Adriaan van der Woude passed away at the age of 87. Adriaan has from the start of KVI in the 1960’s until his retirement in 1995 played a leading role in the nuclear physics research that has given KVI its high international standing. Adriaan was appointed as professor in experimental nuclear physics in 1980 until his retirement in 1995.

The NWO Science (ENW) Domain Board has granted a funding of 425000€ to Julia Even to develop novel chemical separation techniques. These techniques will open the door to measure the mass of doubly magic tin-100 (¹⁰⁰Sn).

By royal resolution Sytze Brandenburg has been appointed Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on April 26.

Radioactive isotopes play an important role in de diagnosis of various diseases and in the treatment of cancer. In order to warrant long-term availability of these radioactive isotopes significant investments in new production facilities have to be made in the coming decade

On January 16, 1997, the AGOR cyclotron was officially inaugurated in the presence of the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science J.M.M. Ritzen and the French Secretary of State for Research F. d'Auber.