SFB 1456:  Mathematics of Experiment: The challenge of indirect measurements in the natural sciences

• Subject Area: Mathematics ; Biology ; Chemistry ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Medicine ; Physics
• Term: since 2021
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432680300

We witness an era where unprecedented amounts of data are acquired in experimental research in the natural sciences. While new measurement techniques and instruments keep being devised and improved for inexpensive and efficient data acquisition, the current bottleneck is how to extract meaningful information from the resulting vast amounts of such measurements. Typical reasons are that modern measurement technologies often provide such information only in an indirect manner and that the observational data are strongly corrupted by noise and often generated in an inherently random way. The goal of this Collaborative Research Center is to contribute to the efficient extraction of maximal quantitative information from experimental data, backed by mathematical modelling and analysis.Research in this CRC is steered by data. We focus on three types of structures that are abundantly prevalent in experimental data: data with geometric nonlinearities, data with incomplete information, and data with information in their dependency structure.Under this umbrella, at least one experimental scientist and one mathematician have teamed up in each of the proposed projects in order to study a specific type of experimental data ranging from condensed matter physics, molecular and cellular biophysics, structural biology, biomedical research to astronomy. We build on existing strong ties between applied mathematics and experimental natural sciences, which have been established over more than a decade and that are unique to the Göttingen Campus. In the long run we envision that the new mathematical tools for analyzing experimental data will enable new experimental techniques of unprecedented power.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• International Connection: Austria

Current projects

• A01 - Geometry and Bayesian statistics to reconstruct protein radical structures from ENDOR spectroscopy (Project Heads Bennati, Marina ;  Huckemann, Stephan )
• A02 - Geometry of bio-polymer conformational dynamics (Project Heads Enderlein, Jörg ;  Sturm, Anja ;  Wardetzky, Max )
• A03 - Dimensionality reduction and regression in Wasserstein space for quantitative 3D histology (Project Heads Salditt, Tim ;  Schmitzer, Bernhard )
• A04 - Dynamics of cytoskeletal networks: From geometric structure to cell mechanics (Project Heads Köster, Sarah ;  Munk, Axel )
• A05 - Statistical methods for reconstruction of continuous movements from cryo-EM data (Project Heads Habeck, Michael ;  Stark, Holger )
• A06 - Predictive models and frame of reference in macaque sensorimotor cortex under natural conditions (Project Heads Gail, Alexander ;  Sinz, Fabian )
• B01 - Mathematics of atomic orbital tomography (Project Heads Luke, David Russell ;  Mathias, Stefan )
• B02 - Ensemble inference – new sampling algorithms and applications in structural biology (Project Heads de Groot, Berend ;  Habeck, Michael ;  Rudolf, Daniel )
• B03 - Low-rank and sparsity-based models in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Project Heads Plonka-Hoch, Gerlind ;  Uecker, Martin )
• B04 - Collective dynamics of ion channels: statistical modeling and analysis (Project Heads Li, Housen ;  Steinem, Claudia )
• B05 - Inference of functional networks in the neuronal circuit of the retina from large-scale spike-train recordings (Project Heads Ecker, Alexander ;  Gollisch, Tim )
• B06 - Compensating motion and model inexactness in nano-CT and local tomography (Project Heads Salditt, Tim ;  Wald, Anne )
• C01 - Density matrix reconstructions in ultrafast free electron optics (Project Heads Hohage, Thorsten ;  Ropers, Claus )
• C02 - Stochastic computed tomography: theory and algorithms for single-shot X-FEL imaging (Project Heads Grubmüller, Helmut ;  Luke, David Russell )
• C03 - Intensity correlations in diffraction experiments: convolution, reconstruction and information (Project Heads Hohage, Thorsten ;  Salditt, Tim )
• C04 - Correlations of solar oscillations: modeling and inversions (Project Heads Gizon, Laurent ;  Hohage, Thorsten ;  Lehrenfeld, Christoph )
• C06 - Optimal transport based colocalization (Project Heads Jakobs, Stefan ;  Munk, Axel ;  Schmitzer, Bernhard )
• INF - Infrastructure for exchange of research data and software (Project Heads Lehrenfeld, Christoph ;  Osterhoff, Markus ;  Uecker, Martin )
• Z01 - Central tasks (Project Head Hohage, Thorsten )

• Applicant Institution: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Participating Institution: Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (MPS); Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie; (Karl-Friedrich-Bonhoeffer-Institut) (aufgelöst)
• Participating University: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Thorsten Hohage