Cluster Cosmology

Here are recommendations from Joe on the PhD program and institute identity.

I followed up with Herr Emmer about this issue of choosing "Astronomie Promotion" or "Physik Promotion" He told me that most students from USM appear in Astronomie but that it is your choice. The choice of physics or astronomy has no impact on the form of the degree (which is a Physics PhD from LMU) or the nature of the defense. I guess it's an internal LMU classification.

Anyway, you should feel free to go either route. I guess if I were choosing I would choose physics.

I will take this opportunity to repeat my recommendation about how you identify yourselves when you give talks or write papers. We are all researchers in the LMU Physics department. This is a fantastically strong physics department-- the strongest in Germany and second only to ETH Zurich on the European continent. We can rightly be proud that we are working in such a strong group of physicists! :) And we are an important part of that strength- working on interesting questions within two or three of the top observational cosmology projects in the world. So please use LMU Physics as your association.

USM on the other hand is our current home. It's the location where we work. One could of course use USM on your mailing address, but even that is not necessary. I typically use:

Prof. Joseph Mohr
Faculty of Physics
Scheinerstrasse 1
81679 Muenchen

USM doesn't exist as a legal entity. It's simply the location of three physics chairs within the faculty. Unfortunately at present the physics faculty are spread across 6 different locations. The Dean and others are working to fix this, and the plan is for us to move to the new physics campus (walking distance from Universität along with the theoretical physics people at Theresienstrasse) on a timescale of 4 or 5 years. This is too long to be of relevance for you all, but it gives a real sense of the future for USM. Some state bureaucracy will be located here after the University gives up the building-- perhaps we will all come here for new car tags a decade from now! :)

Best wishes,
Joe