Prof. Dr. Susanne Mertens
Academic Career and Research Areas
Prof. Mertens field of research is the area of Astroparticle Physics. The neutrino is the most abundant known matter particle in the universe. Yet, some of its fundamental properties are still uknown. What is the mass of the neutrino? Is is its own antiparticle? Are there more neutrino types? The answer to these questions will help to better understand our universe and its smallest constituents. Prof. Mertens is working on laboratory-based experiments to discover these neutrino properties.
Prof. Mertens studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where she also did her PhD. Following her graduation she spend 4 years in the US at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoc. Since 2016 Prof. Mertens is leading an independent Max Planck Research Group. Since the same time she worked as tenure track professer at TUM and since 2021 she was appointed Assistant Professor at TUM. Prof. Mertens was appointed university professor in May 2022.
Awards
- ERC Starting Grant (2019)
- Teaching award of TUM (2018)
- Teaching award “Goldene Kreide” (2017)
- Erna Scheffler award (2012)
- Springer Thesis award (2012)
Key Publications
Katrin Collaboration: “An improved upper limit on the neutrino mass from a direct kinematic method by KATRIN”. Phys. Rev. Lett.. 2020; 123: 221802.
AbstractS. Mertens et al: “A novel detector system for KATRIN to search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos”. Journal of Physics G. 2019; 46.
AbstractMajorana Collaboration: “Search for neutrinoless double beta decay in 76Ge with the Majorana Demonstrator”. Phys. Rev. Lett.. 2018; 120: 132502.
Abstract“A white paper on keV sterile neutrino dark matter”. Journal of Cosmology and Particle Physics. 2017; no.01: 025.
AbstractS. Mertens et al: “Sensitivity of Next-Generation Tritium-Beta-Decay Experiments for keV-scale sterile neutrinos”. JCAP. 2015; no.02, 020.
Abstract