Research interests

Massive stars tend to explode at the end of their lifetime, releasing about the same energy that our sun is emitting in its 10-billion-year long lifecycle within a few seconds, and as a  result sending powerful blast waves out into our Galaxy. These blast waves are able to energize particles from the surrounding medium to  energies well beyond anything we can do with all our technical possibilities.
Using the  measurements of the particles that leave the remnants and make it to earth after a long journey - called cosmic rays or high-altitude  radiation - and measurements of the gamma-ray emission that these  particles cause while still being inside the remnants, I try to improve our theoretical understanding of the acceleration process that takes  place inside the remnants. As a result, I helped to develop the  numerical toolset RATPaC (Radiation Acceleration Transport PArallel  Code) to study the acceleration of high-energetic non-thermal particles  in the shock-waves succeeding supernova explosions and was/am involved  in the very-high gamma-ray observatories VERITAS and H.E.S.S..