Congratulations to Alison Mitchell for winning an Emmy Noether grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Her six-year project “Unveiling the Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays: Exploring Pulsar Environments at the Highest Energies” will use H.E.S.S. and ultimately CTA to tackle this important question in two steps: After focusing on technical improvements to data analysis and towards detailed and precision studies of individual PWNe systems, the second aim will be to increase the number of known TeV PWNe and halos, conducting multi- wavelength and population studies. The grant will enable Alison to start an Emmy Noether team within the H.E.S.S. group of Erlangen University in October 2021.

The project focus is on the acceleration and transport of Cosmic Rays in Pulsar environments. Within the last year, evidence has emerged that Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe) accelerate electrons and positrons to PeV energies, but the origin of other PeV particles remains unconfirmed. Recent measurements of two nearby pulsars showed surprisingly slow diffusion of Cosmic Rays, causing some tension with current theoretical models.

Alison has started her scientific career as a PhD student in the H.E.S.S. group at MPIK in Heidelberg and subsequently worked for the CTAO, the University of Zurich and ETH. During this time Alison remained a member or an associate member, respectively, of the H.E.S.S. collaboration. For her numerous contributions within the H.E.S.S. collaboration, Alison was awarded the H.E.S.S. Prize in 2020.