Dr. Tim Holch was awarded the H.E.S.S. prize for his many contributions to different elements of HESS operations and data analysis. From the start of his PhD project within HESS Tim was an essential member of the data acquisition team. In this capacity he has implemented remote observing with the HESS telescopes from a control room in Zeuthen, safeguarding operations in the challenging times of the Covid pandemic. He had been the key person in tracking data transfer to Europe. Besides his contributions to HESS operations, Tim has participated to the efforts of improving the understanding of the instrumental response and data quality. He contributed to the efforts in validating Monte Carlo simulations from the individual components to the whole array against the data. Based on this project, Tim is now leading the development of a novel algorithm for data analysis to correct for atmospheric variation improving the accuracy of many measurements and thus enhancing the amount of data that is available for scientific analysis.
H.E.S.S. Prize Hall of Fame
The H.E.S.S. Prize
With the H.E.S.S. Prize, the collaboration acknowledges young scientists (PhD, postdoc, junior staff) who made outstanding service contributions to the experiment. Such contributions might range from hardware maintenance to various aspects of data handling including outstanding analyses (the development of a new analysis technique allowing a measurement not possible before) or a key contribution to an important scientific discovery. The prize is awarded at every collaboration meeting through a confidential vote by the Collaboration Board.
List of H.E.S.S. Prize Winners
Sylvia Zhu
Dr. Sylvia Zhu was awarded the H.E.S.S. prize for her contribution to efficient H.E.S.S. operations, the diligent and careful oversight of the H.E.S.S. data acquisition system (DAQ), coordination of the H.E.S.S. GRB team, and numerous science communication and outreach activities. Sylvia is a postdoctoral researcher who has acted as DAQ lead since 2019 and significantly contributed to the upgrade of the system in 2019/2020. In this role, she is the main contact for shift personnel in troubleshooting problems — a particularly important task during the challenging Corona pandemic when only remote support was possible. She also helped establish the first H.E.S.S. remote operations control room. As GRB coordinator she continues to shape the GRB science program and its multi-wavelength activities. Her continued strong commitment to science communication and outreach efforts elevated the visibility of H.E.S.S. and, in particular, its early-career scientists.
Dr. Halim Ashkar was awarded the HESS prize for his contribution to the H.E.S.S. multi-messenger program. Halim recently graduated from the Université Paris-Saclay where he worked at IRFU / CEA Paris-Saclay on many aspects of the H.E.S.S. transient program. For example, he added a connection between the UTMOST radio telescope and the H.E.S.S. transients follow-up system, which enables automatic follow-up of FRBs and participated in several MWL campaigns searching for MWL counterparts to FRBs (DeeperWiderFaster, MeerKAT). In this context he was responsible for the joint H.E.S.S. and Swift campaign on SGR1935+2154 during the activity phase in April/May 2020 linked to the detection of the first Galactic FRB and its X-ray counterpart. Halim also developed, implemented and commissioned novel algorithms in the transient follow-up system improving the automatic response of H.E.S.S to gravitational wave detections. These have been used successfully during the physics run O3 of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. Since 2019 Halim is leading the gravitational wave task group of the H.E.S.S. collaboration. Using this expertise, he also extended the H.E.S.S. gamma-ray burst program to cover large uncertainty regions (e.g. tiling of bursts detected by Fermi-GBM) thereby greatly improving our chances of catching the VHE emission associated to gamma-ray bursts.
Lenka Tomankova
Dr. Lenka Tomankova was awarded the HESS prize for her contribution to enabling moon light and twilight observations with the H.E.S.S. telescopes. Lenka coordinated the moonlight task group that was established in 2019. Her work included the definition of moon parameter phase space suited for H.E.S.S. observations, sensitivity studies and unification of the gains during dark and weak-to-moderate moon light observations as well as the study of the NSB and triggering behaviour for these observations. All these – together with a strong support team – contributed to the implementation of moonlight observations resulting in an increase in the amount of data obtained with the H.E.S.S. telescopes. This is particularly advantageous for time-domain science which takes up an increasing fraction of the H.E.S.S. observing program. We are looking forward to a significant increase in observing time resulting from the work of Lenka and her team in 2021.
Alison was awarded the H.E.S.S. prize for numerous contributions to the H.E.S.S. experiment, both technical and scientific. During her PhD work in Heidelberg Alison took responsibility for the calibration of data using muons, adapting the calibration to the second phase of the experiment (H.E.S.S. II) as well as significantly improving the accuracy and stability of this analysis. More recently, Alison took care of implementing the new day shift crews, which work with the on-site team to monitor H.E.S.S. data quality and identify problems. This activity was established from scratch and has shown Alison’s skill at engaging and coordinating the yeams (often including new H.E.S.S. members) and supporting them in their daily work. Alison has also led several H.E.S.S. science publications, including the measurement of HESS J1825-137’s extension and spectrum and the detection of the large and local Pulsar Wind Nebula surrounding Geminga. Both these analyses have require a thorough technical understanding of both the instrument and the data analysis and have led to further improvements of these aspects for the collaboration as a whole.
Cornelia Arcaro
Cornelia Arcaro was awarded the HESS Prize in November 2020 for her tremendous work in recovering, maintaining and documenting the H.E.S.S. pointing models. The pointing models are used to calibrate the telescopes’ positioning systems, by comparing the locations of bright stars measured by external cameras on the telescopes to their expected positions. Cornelia’s work included smoothly and regularly producing pointing models by checking the data, processing the models, identifying and monitoring changes, as well as updating and maintaining the documentation. She engaged with many aspects connected to the generation of pointing models, including GPS timing, and CCD cameras. Moreover, Cornelia has been very active as member of the GRB team. She has served as a gamma ray burst expert on-call for many shifts. Her engagement in the GRB team came to fruition when being the resident observer and shift-GRB-expert in the night the very first GRB to be discovered in the VHE energy range was observed (GRB 180720B). Her on-site presence was an important asset in securing these transformative observations.