Alexander Lenz

  • After studying physics at Technical University of Munich, I did my PhD at the Max-Planck-Institut for physics (Werner Heisenberg Institute) in Munich under the supervision of Uli Nierste and Andrzej Buras. I was working at that time on higher order QCD corrections to inclusive B meson decays.
  • In 1999 I switched to the chair of Vladimir Braun at Regensburg University and I started to work also on sum rules as well as different new physics models (in particular SUSY and 4th generation) – 6 years later I did my habilitation in Regensburg. In 2005 I received the Prize for excellent Teaching from the Bavarian government.
  • From 2010 on I had temporary professorships in Regensburg (W2), TU Dortmund (W2) and TU Munich (W3).
  • End of 2011 I started a Heisenberg-fellowship at CERN, which I quit after only one year to start as a lecturer at Durham University, UK.
  • During my eight years in Durham I was promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor and for a little more than five years I was deputy director of the IPPP. In that time I was organising a big number of workshops mostly dedicated to flavour physics in the UK (e.g. the legendary Heavy Flavour workshop in the Ardbeg Distillery – see the Ardbeg Committee Newsletter ) and I initiated an outreach program for the IPPP, which reached more than 50 000 people. I acted for several years as external examiner of the physics department of Warwick University, being responsible for the content of examination papers and for marking standards in the same way as for all other UK physics students. Physicswise I started in the UK to investigate the potential size of BSM effects in non-leptonic tree-level decays and the use of HQET sum rules to determine Bag parameters for mixing and lifetimes.
  • In June 2020 I moved back to Germany and I have conquered the chair of theoretical particle physics at the University of Siegen from Thomas Mannel. I am still teaching regularly at Cambridge University and at international schools for PhD students (e.g. Japanese PhD meeting, LHCb School Neckarzimmern, Wai-Hai Summer School in China, Maria Laach, pre-FPCP School in Lyon, CERN School in Denmark).
  • A brief summary of the activities at our chair from 2022 here and 2024 here.
  • Currently we spend a big amount of energy in our project Color meets flavor with our friends in Bonn, Dortmund and Jülich. Here the plan is to bring together leading experts from separate fields like hadron and flavour physics (both from experiment and theory) in order to solve puzzles, like structure formation in QCD, the origin of the B anomalies or the missing amount of CP violation in nature.
  • Besides we are successfully collaborating with our friends from Aachen, Karlsruhe and  Heidelberg for several years in the collaborative research center CRC TRR-257.

Social Media: YouTube, Instagram , Twitter , facebook — Why is physics in Siegen great? — You can also rent me for free! Rent a Prof – even for primary schools! — Podcast at Siegen University and within our CRC

Publications

A list of my publications can be found in the inSpire database by clicking here or at GoogleScholar

Research Interests and Research Areas

I am basically interested in finding the correct extension of the standard model that will also allow to explain the existence of matter in the universe as well as the nature of dark matter. To come closer to the solution of this ambitious goal numerous small steps have to be undertaken. First real deviations of experiment and standard model have to be identified. Therefore we need control over the hadronic uncertainties of the theory predictions. Then the theoretical structure of possible deviations has to be investigated – this can be done in a model-dependent and a model-independent way. Finally cosmological consequences of modification of the standard model have to be studied.

  • Precise standard model predictions for flavour observables – most precise predictions for mixing and lifetimes (Reference value for HFLAV) – Interview for Nature about CP violation
  • Theoretical understanding of Charm Physics (Nature article, Interview for Physics World)
  • Indirect new physics searches and new physics contributions to non-leptonic B decays
  • New physics models (SUSY, 4th Generation, 2HDM)
  • Flavour bounds for Dark matter model

Selected Talks (12 out of 300)

Conference Organisation since 2022

Teaching (selected lecture notes)

PhD students

Flavour Postdocs

Outreach

What does a physics professor do in his spare time?

I spend a lot of time in supporting my family and my friends.
Besides my professional interest in theoretical particle physics I am also keen on applied research, in particular on subtle effects of the General Theory of Relativity on different test particles in the gravity field of the Earth. In that respect I regularly participate in expert meetings on applied gravity, see also here.
In contrast to most of my physics colleagues, I highly respect other sciences like chemistry – I regularly travel with like-minded people far in order to be able to study and appreciate the outcome of chemical investigations at remote research laboratories.
Click here to get a more exciting version with pictures or check how BBC is presenting me.