About me

My name is Bernd J. Riederer and I am currently a PhD-student of Theoretical Particle Physics at the University of Graz.
I started studying Physics back in 2014 in Graz after finishing my civilian service. The civilian service was the time when I realized, that working closely with other people and teaching them things is what I want to do. However, the lack of mathematics during this time was very unsatisfying, so I decided to study Physics.
During my bachelor studies I started to give exercise classes for first and second semester students covering basics in maths (i.e. Linear Algebra) and basics in programming (i.e. MATLAB).
I concluded my bachelor studies by summer 2017 with the Bachelor's Thesis "Portal Monitor optimization by applied deconvolution of gamma ray spectra" (Abstract). The Thesis was written in a cooperation with Seibersdorf Laboratories during an internship in the summer break 2016. This was also the first time where I encountered Monte-Carlo methods/simulations.
In 2017 I spent my summer break again at the Seibersdorf Laboratories, where I started my second project on the deconvolution of X-Ray spectra.
Then in October 2017 I started my graduate studies of Physics where I again returned to teaching first and second semester students, but also added a course for a higher semester concerning advanced skills in programming (i.e. Computational Methods in Technical Physics).
Again in the summer break 2018 I was working at the Seibersdorf Laboratories on the optimization of correction factors for Free-Air-Chambers used in diagnostic measurments.
By the start of the winter term 2018/19 I began to work on a small project as an introduction for my Master's Thesis in the Group of Prof. Axel Maas on Higgs physics. The change from the project to the work on the thesis was quite fluent but I officially started the work in May 2019. The topic of the Thesis was to investigate Scattering phases in the Higgs to W-channel under the assumption of the Higgs to be a composite particle. This assumption is necessary to get rid off of the Gauge dependence for the propagators and by that make the Higgs an observable particle. For a deeper investigation of the behavior I did analyse the results of simulations on space-time lattices. These can be used to calculate phase shifts of these bound states.
If one is more interested in this topic I recommend to read the review Brout-Englert-Higgs physics: From foundations to phenomenology by A. Maas or to search for the Keywords "gauge invariant perturbation theory" and "FMS-mechanism (J. Fröhlich, G. Morchio and F. Strocchi)".
After approximately one year of working, several participated conferences and desparetly thinking about what comes after finishing my studies, I successfully defended my Master's Thesis in March 2020. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic I had to defend my work via Skype from home. The presentation-slides as well as a backup-video can be found in the Publications tab.
By April 2020 I started my work as a PhD-student at the University of Graz. Luckily, I got the chance to continue my work on Lattice Spectroscopy in the same group.

For more details on my person feel free to look at my CV below or to contact me.

Curriculum Vitae: pdf