PHELIX and Plasmaphysics Program Advisory Committee (PPAC)
The PHELIX and Plasmaphysics Program Advisory Committee (PPAC) is an international program advisory committee of GSI/FAIR. It gives advice to the Directorate on selecting experiment proposals that are submitted by individual users or user groups in the field of plasma physics with ions and lasers, currently for the FAIR-Phase 0 program. Following periodic calls for proposals, the PPAC meets approx. once every year; it evaluates the experiment proposals on the basis of scientific merit and with regard to the GSI/FAIR strategy, and makes recommendations on the amount of beam time to be allotted by the Scientific Director.
'Call for Proposals' - for ion and laser experiments
Deadline November 26, 2024
We hereby invite you to submit experiment proposals in the framework of FAIR Phase-0, which offers beamtime for experiments at GSI until the start of FAIR. The FAIR Phase-0 program is exploiting the facilities of GSI, upgraded to meet the requirements as FAIR injectors, plus the FAIR CRYRING storage ring and PHELIX laser. Moreover, it offers an opportunity to use detectors developed for FAIR for scientific programs.
The present 'Call for Proposals' to all four Program Advisory Committees (PACs) is foreseen to offer a total user beamtime combined of roughly
- 350 shifts at UNILAC,
- 300 shifts at SIS18,
- 250 shifts in total for at ESR, ESR-HITRAP and ESR-CRYRING,
- 100 shifts at PHELIX.
Ion experiments will be scheduled in 2026 and 2027, PHELIX experiments between end 2025 and summer 2026.
Proposals to PPAC (laser & laser-ion) must be submitted by the 26th of November 2024!
A list of typically available ion beam parameters can be found here.
For current laser and experimental parameters see here.
The 'Call' for beamtime proposals is open until November 26, 2024.
For details on the application procedure see 'Application Procedure'.
Should questions on technical feasibility, safety issues etc. arise after the submission, our staff will contact the spokesperson (proposer) by E-mail to clarify these points before the advisory committee meeting. In their meeting on January 23-24, 2025, the PHELIX and Plasma Physics Program Advisory Committee (PPAC) will discuss the received proposals with a clear focus on scientific excellence. Should questions arise in those discussion the proposal’s spokesperson will be asked to response within days. Accordingly, the PPAC will formulate their evaluation and recommend granting beamtime to the proposed experiments to the directorate. Experiments granted(1) in this round will run in the above-mentioned period. Granted shifts will expire after this period.
(1) Beamtime is granted at no charge within the framework of the Helmholtz Association: “Rahmenrichtlinie über die Nutzung von Forschungsanlagen der Helmholtz-Zentren durch Dritte” (1.3.2000), §II. 1.2. GSI/FAIR need to report to funding agencies on user operation and user communities in form of statistical data.
Processes of user beamtime are managed in the platform GATE: “General Access Tool to the Experimental Infrastructures of GSI”. Here, registered users can see for example all their proposals and experiments - unsubmitted, active and finished ones – and see information on their open tasks, on which they are informed also by Email.
Weblink to GATE: https://gate.gsi.de
Note: All participants of a proposal need to register in GATE and mark in their settings that they agree appearing in other users’ search results, and need to be included in the proposal as so-called Co-Proposers in GATE. Information on all participants of a proposal is urgently needed for statistics given to our funding agencies as justification for running our facilities.
Proposal Submission:
Editing a proposal can be interrupted at any time and continued later. Please follow the instructions in the system and in the short GATE manual carefully. The proposal text to be uploaded is to be structured as explained under: www.gsi.de/proposal-structure. Should you encounter any problems, please contact GATE-Help(at)gsi.de (Karin Füssel)
We urgently ask you to consult your Link Scientist (to be chosen in GATE in form “Technical requirements” during proposal preparation) on your entries in the forms and on details of your planned experiment well before submitting the application (i.e. weeks (!) before deadline): After submission, correcting your request is not possible. Please consider that close to submission deadline the Link Scientists might not be available on short-notice!
Note that GSI does not cover the consumables and investments necessary for running an experiment.
Please note that due to current European sanctions participants with Russian or Belarussian affiliation cannot be participants in experiment proposals at GSI/FAIR.
For additional or updated information please consult this webpage and its sub-page Info PHELIX. Further details on the process from application until running the experiment are given here: www.gsi.de/PHELIX/beamtime.
Applicants eligible to the European funding program 'Laserlab-Europe' are encouraged to submit a funding application additionally to Laserlab-Europe to obtain financial support. Indicating during proposal submission your interest in this funding serves as internal information only and does not replace a dedicated funding application at Laserlab-Europe. Note that Laserlab offers financial support for researchers from Europe, and for users from non-EU countries to some extent.
PHELIX can provide access for laser experiments in the PHELIX hall, and alternatively at the Z6 target station at UNILAC and at HHT at SIS18. For information on current laser and experimental parameters please refer to www.gsi.de/PHELIX-parameters or contact the respective person responsible for the target station of interest:
- petawatt target area (PTA): V. Bagnoud, P. Neumayer
- x-ray laboratory: V. Bagnoud, P. Neumayer
- Z6 target area: A. Blazevic, D. Schumacher
- HHT target area: P. Neumayer
Further contacts:
Details on the laser and laser diagnostics: Vincent Bagnoud
Access and support through Laserlab-Europe: Diana Lang
PPAC Scientific Secretary: Karin Füssel
Data Base of granted beam time
Experiments with granted beamtime (i.e. ranked A) are listed in this table. It contains experiments in the status after granting and before completion/expiry, and gives number of granted shifts.
Experiments in the reserve list have been ranked A- due to large overdraft of beamtime. They might be scheduled if beamtime becomes available.
Data are updated before and after a beamtime block.
For information on submission of PHELIX proposals please see: Information for PHELIX users,
and for planning and scheduling of PHELIX experiments see: Beamtime Planning at PHELIX.
General information on application and scheduling of ion beamtime is given under the websites Applying for Beamtime and Scheduling, respectively. General information on ion beam time can be found here.
Members of the PPAC
- Dr. Sophia Chen
ELI-NP, Romania
- Prof. Dr. Antonio Roberto Piriz (for the HED@FAIR Collaboration)
Inst. de Investigaciones Energéticas (INEI), Univ. of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
- Dr. Thomas Schenkel
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
- Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schramm (Chair)
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany
- Prof. Dr. Luca Volpe
Polytechnic University of Madrid & Centro de Láseres Pulsados (CLPU) Salamanca, Spain
PPAC Scientific Secretary
Dr. Karin Füssel
GSI, Darmstadt
Phone: +49-6159-71 1441
Fax: +49-6159-71 2991
contact by E-Mail to: PPAC-Secretary(at)gsi.de
Next PPAC Meeting
Date of the next PPAC Meeting: January 23-24, 2025
Previous PPAC-Meetings
PPAC18 on February 5-6, 2024: documents of the meeting (for PPAC members only)
PPAC17 on September 12-13, 2022
PPAC16 on December 6-7, 2021
PPAC15 on October 5-6, 2020
PPAC14 on July 25-26, 2019
PPAC13 on October 11-12, 2018
PHELIX Committee 12 on August 14-15, 2017
PHELIX Committee 11 on July 21-22, 2016
PHELIX Committee 10 on September 28, 2015
PHELIX Committee 09 on December 4-5, 2014
PHELIX Committee 08 on March 13-14, 2014
PHELIX Committee 07 on January 9-10, 2013
PPAC06 on November 17/18, 2011
PPAC05 on November 8/9, 2010
PPAC04 on September 29/30, 2009
PPAC03 (via E-mail circulation), Winter 2008/09
PPAC Roadmap Meeting, December 13, 2006
PPAC02 on April 3/4, 2006
PPAC01 on September 22-24, 2004
User Services
Information for Users on services and beam time, as well as instructions how to register to the Users Mailinglist for receiving information like opening of "Calls for Proposals" can be found on the Users' Webpages.
Central point of contact for associated guests and users on campus is the Welcome Office.
General Data Protection Regulation GDPR (according to Art. 13 and 14 DSGVO): Staff Management Board GDPR english
