Dieter Roehrich - Curriculum vitae#

1. Content and impact of major scientific contributions#

Scientific project leadership

SPS/AGS-period

• Project leader of the NA49 Offline software (1992-1995): NA49 was one of the first high energy physics experiments which applied modern computer architecture (distributed, heterogeneous UNIX cluster) and programming languages (C/C++) to their analysis framework.

RHIC-period

• Project leader of the STAR L3 Trigger (1995-1998): First real-time reconstruction of thousands of particle trajectories from a large volume tracking detector (TPC).
• Leader of the Norwegian Heavy Ion Physics Project (2003-2005): Significant contributions to the BRAHMS experiment (e.g. 3 PhD theses), which resulted in the discovery of jet quenching in a strongly interacting Quark-Gluon Plasma and gave first indications of the existence of a Color-Glass-Condensate.

LHC-period

• Co-project leader of the ALICE High Level Trigger (HLT) (since 2000): The HLT event display of the first Pb+Pb collision reconstructed online made it onto the CERN home page in Nov. 2010.
• Leader of the Norwegian Project “CERN-related research program in Norway 2006-2011: Nuclear Physics” (since 2006): Significant contributions to the TPC front-end electronics and the PHOS readout and trigger electronics in addition to the HLT involvement.

Initiation of new activities

Dieter Roehrich's activity is characterized by its interdisciplinay character, integrating different expertises and introducing new methods and technologies to other research fields.

• Building up a detector physics and instrumentation activity (“Intelligent Detectors”) for the past 12 years, which now includes the microelectronics group at the institute, the technical computing group at the Bergen University College and the Bergen Center for Computational Science.
• New interdisciplinary approach: Initiation of a collaboration in medical physics with the PET-center and the radiation therapy division at the University Hospital (2005).
• One of the initiators of a physics program within the ALICE collaboration to study a new regime of QCD (gluon saturation).

Outreach

• Selected by the Norwegian Government to serve as an expert in a national committee evaluating the prospects of nuclear energy in Norway, several public presentations.
• Several (8) public talks/articles/interviews on weapons of mass destruction.
• Dissemination of basic physics results: 7 talks/articles/interviews.

2. International recognition and diffusion#

• 164 publications resulted in 6234 citations and an h-index of 41, according to ISI.
• Compilations of pion and strangeness production (Z. Phys. C65 (1995) 215, Z. Phys. C71 (1996) 55 and Phys. G27 (2001) 355-366 (see selected publications)) which resulted in an invitation as conference summary speaker at Quark Matter 2002, which is the main conference in the field of high energy nuclear physics (typically more than 600 participants).
• Invitation to give a topical plenary talk at Quark Matter 2005 on the physics at forward rapidities (based on out BRAHMS activities).

3. Ability to inspire younger researchers#

• Formation of the first Research School in Norway (2004), bilateral agreement with the German DFG and the University of Heidelberg.
• Former PhD students now employed as professors at universities and university colleges: 4 and currently employed as postdocs or senior staff at research institutions (e.g. LBL, GSI, CERN, Yale): 9