Research

Since the very beginning of his academic career, Lorenz Cederbaum felt attracted by different scientific disciplines. He studied physics at the University of Munich, where he completed his diploma work in an experimental group. For his PhD studies, he moved to the Chemistry Department of the Technical University of Munich. Due to his strong interest in theory, he then decided to acquire deeper knowledge of theoretical methods and concepts and therefore joined the Theoretical Physics department there. Recognized as an outstanding young scientist, he was offered a tenured associate professor position in Theoretical Physics at the University of Freiburg before completing his Habilitation. He accepted this position and moved to Freiburg at the age of 29 after passing his Habilitation,. Soon afterwards, he decided to return to chemistry and accepted an offer for a Chair of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. He has held the Heidelberg Chair of Theoretical Chemistry until today.

Lorenz Cederbaum rarely joins mainstream research but prefers to open up new directions of research and predicts new basic phenomena. A prominent recent example is his theoretical prediction of an ultrafast energy transfer mechanism denoted Intermolecular Coulombic Decay (ICD) which has been verified by exciting experiments and has become a blooming field of research. To tackle non-standard problems, methods and tools are necessary which are often not available and must be developed. It is characteristic of Cederbaum and his group to start new scientific projects which require even the basic theory to be developed, along with the essential methods and tools - all the way up to applications to realistic systems.