STRUCTURES
STRUCTURES is one of two initiatives at Heidelberg University from the Clusters of Excellence funding line within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments.
The STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence addresses specific questions about the formation, role, and detection of structure in a broad range of natural phenomena, from subatomic particles to cosmology, and from fundamental quantum physics to neuroscience. On its homepage the initiative summarizes this as follows:
"The cluster of excellence STRUCTURES explores new concepts and methods for understanding how structure, collective phenomena, and complexity emerge from the fundamental laws of physics. These concepts are also central for finding structures in large datasets, and for realizing new forms of analogue computing."[1]
Spokespersons are the Heidelberg scientists
- Prof. Dr Manfred Salmhofer (Institute for Theoretical Physics),
- Prof. Dr Anna Wienhard (Mathematical Institute) and
- Prof. Dr Markus K. Oberthaler (Kirchhoff Institute for Physics).
Organization
STRUCTURES is subdivided into a network of comprehensive projects (CP) and exploratory projects (EP)
CPs, 7 of which exist within STRUCTURES, are the coarsest organizing blocks and determine the major research directions within STRUCTURES and which groups are related to it. A short description from the STRUCTURES homepage is as follows:
"The comprehensive projects (CP) of STRUCTURES address specific major questions about structure formation, which all involve a complex interplay of physical processes over many length and time scales."[2]
EPs are projects of a somewhat smaller scope that are meant to investigate certain areas of expertise or probe a direction of research that might be relevant for the CPs. Examples are EP Mathematics and Data and EP Dynamics.