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This thesis deals with the phenomenology of QCD matter, its aspects in heavy ion collisions and in neutron stars. The first half of the work focuses on the hadronic phase of QCD matter. One focus is on how the hadronic phase shows itself in heavy ion collisions and how its dynamics can be simulated. The role of hadronic interactions is considered in the context of the lattice QCD data. The second part of this thesis presents a unified approach to QCD matter, the CMF model. The CMF model incorporates many aspects of QCD phenomenology which allows for a consistent description of the hadron-quark transition, making it applicable to the entire QCD phase diagram, i.e., to the cold nuclear matter and to the hot QCD matter. It is shown that a description of both the hot matter created in heavy ion collisions and the cold dense matter in neutron star interiors is possible within one single approach, the CMF model.
Since the discovery of the reversible intercalation of lithium-ion materials associated with promising electrochemical properties, lithium-containing materials have attracted attention in the research and development of effective cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Despite various studies on synthesis, and electrochemical properties of lithium-based materials, fairly little fundamental optical and thermodynamic studies are available in the literature. Here, we report on the structure, optical, magnetic, and thermodynamic properties of Li-excess disordered rocksalt, Li1.3Nb0.3Mn0.4O2 (LNMO) which was comprehensively studied using powder X-ray diffraction, transient absorption spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility, and low-temperature heat capacity measurements. Charge carrier dynamics and electron–phonon coupling in LNMO were studied using ultra-fast laser spectroscopy. Magnetic susceptibility and specific heat data are consistent with the onset of long-range antiferromagnetic order at the Néel temperatures of 6.5 (1.5) K. The effective magnetic moment of LNMO is found to be 3.60 μB. The temperature dependence of the inverse magnetic susceptibility follows the Curie–Weiss law in the high-temperature region and shows negative values of the Weiss temperature 52 K (3), confirming the strong AFM interactions.
Next-generation DIRC detectors, like the PANDA Barrel DIRC, with improved optical designs and better spatial and timing resolution, require correspondingly advanced reconstruction and PID methods. The investigation of the PID performance of two DIRC counters and the evaluation of the reconstruction and PID algorithms form the core of this thesis. Several reconstruction and PID approaches were developed, optimized, and tested using hadronic beam particles, experimental physics events, and Geant simulations. The near-final design of the PANDA Barrel DIRC was evaluated with a prototype in the T9 beamline at CERN in 2018. The analysis finds excellent agreement between the experimental data and the Geant simulations for all reconstruction algorithms. The best PID performance of up to $5.2 \pm 0.2$ s.d. $\pi$/K separation at 3.5 GeV/c, was obtained with a time imaging PID method. The PANDA Barrel DIRC simulation, as well as the reconstruction and PID algorithms, were evaluated using experimental data from the GlueX DIRC as part of the FAIR Phase-0 program. The performance validation was carried out using physics events of the GlueX experiment and simulations. The initial analysis results of the commissioning dataset show a $\pi$/K separation power of up to 3 s.d. at a momentum of 3.0-3.5 GeV/c, obtained using a geometric reconstruction algorithm.
Terahertz (THz) technology is an emerging field that considers the radiation between microwave and far-infrared regions where the electronic and photonic technologies merge. THz generation and THz sensing technologies should fill the gap between photonics and electronics which is defined as a region where THz generation power and THz sensing capabilities are at a low technology readiness level (TRL). As one of the options for THz detection technology, field-effect transistors with integrated antennae were suggested to be used as THz detectors in the 1990s by M. Dyakonov and M. Shur from where the development of field-effect transistor-based detector began. In this work, various FET technologies are presented, such as CMOS, AlGaN/GaN, and graphene-based material systems and their further sensitivity enhancement in order to reach the performance of well-developed Schottky diode-based THz sensing technology. Here presented FET-based detectors were explored in a wide frequency range from 0.1 THz up to 5 THz in narrowband and broadband configurations.
For proper implementation of THz detectors, the well-defined characterization is of high importance. Therefore, this work overviews the characterization methods, establishes various definitions of detector parameters, and summarizes the state-of-the-art THz detectors. The electrical, optical, and cryogenic characterization techniques are also presented here, as well as the best results obtained by the development of the characterization methods, namely graphene FET stabilization, low-power THz source characterization for detector calibration, and technology development for cryogenic detection.
Following the discussion about the detector characterization, a wide range of THz applications, which were tested during the last four years of Ph.D. and conducted under the ITN CELTA project from HORIZON2020 program, are presented in this work. The studies began with spectroscopy applications and imaging and later developed towards hyperspectral imaging and even passive imaging of human body THz radiation. As various options for THz applications, single-pixel detectors as well as multi-pixel arrays are also covered in this work.
The conducted research shows that FET-based detectors can be used for spectroscopy applications or be easily adapted for the relevant frequency range. State-of-the-art detectors considered in this work reach the resonant performance below 20 pW/√Hz at 0.3 THz and 0.5 THz, as well as 404 pW/√Hz cross-sectional NEP at 4.75 THz. The broadband detectors show NEP as low as 25 pW/√Hz at around 0.6 THz for the best AlGaN/GaN design and 25 pW/√Hz around 1 THz for the best CMOS design. As one of the most promising applications, metamaterial characterization was tested using the most sensitive devices. Furthermore, one of the single-pixel devices and a multi-pixel array were tested as an engineering solution for a radio astronomy system called GREAT in a stratosphere observatory named SOFIA. The exploration of the autocorrelation technique using FET-based devices shows the opportunity to employ such detectors for direct detection of THz pulses without an interferometric measurement setup.
This work also considers imaging applications, which include near-field and far-field visualization solutions. A considerable milestone for the theory of FET technology was achieved when scanning near-field microscopy led to the visualization of plasma (or carrier density) waves in a graphene FET channel. Whereas another important milestone for the THz technology was achieved when a 3D scan of a mobile phone was performed under the far-field imaging mode. Even though the imaging was done through the phone’s plastic cover, the image displayed high accuracy and good feature recognition of the smartphone, inching the FET-based detector technology ever so close to practical security applications. In parallel, the multi-pixel array testing was carried out on 6x7 pixel arrays that have been implemented in configurable-size aperture and imaging configurations. The configurable aperture size allowed the easier detector focusing procedure and a better fit for the beam size of the incident radiation. The imaging has been tested on various THz sources and compared to the TeraSense 16x16 pixel array. The experimental results show the big advantage of the developed multi-pixel array against the used commercial technology.
Furthermore, two ultra-low-power applications have been successfully tested. The application on hyper-frequency THz imaging tested in the specially developed dual frequency comb and our detector system for 300 GHz radiation with 9 spectral lines led to outstanding imaging results on various materials. The passive imaging of human body radiation was conducted using the most sensitive broadband CMOS detector with a log-spiral antenna working in the 0.1 – 1.5 THz range and reaching the optical NEP of 42 pW/√Hz. The NETD of this device reaches 2.1 K and overcomes the performance limit of passive room-temperature imaging of the human body radiation, which was less than 10 K above the room temperature. This experiment opened a completely new field that was explored before only by the multiplier chain-based or thermal detectors.
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The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) Experiment will investigate heavy ion collisions and reactions at interaction rates of 100 kHz in a targeted energy range of up to 11 AGeV for systems such as gold-gold or lead-lead. It will be one of the major scientific experiments of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe (FAIR) currently under construction at the site of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany. CBM is going to be a fixed target experiment consisting of a superconducting magnet, multiple detectors of various types, and high-performance computing for online event reconstruction and selection. The detector closest to the interaction point of the experiment will be the Micro Vertex Detector (MVD). Consisting of four planar stations equipped with custom CMOS pixel sensors, it will allow to reconstruct the primary vertex with high precision and will help to reconstruct secondary vertices and identify particles originating from conversion in the detector material.
Due to the high interaction rates foreseen for CBM, understanding and minimizing systematic errors due to the detectors’ operating conditions will become all the more important to obtain significant measurement results, as statistical errors in the measurements of many observables are diminishing due to the enormous amount of data available.
Furthermore, the MVD will be the first detector based on CMOS pixel sensors used in a large physics experiment, that will be operated in vacuum. As a result, many aspects of the mechanical and electrical integration of the detector require careful testing and validation.
This thesis addresses both those challenges specifically for the Micro Vertex Detector with the development of a control system for the operation and validation of the MVD prototype “PRESTO” in vacuum. The prototype was selected as device under test as the final MVD is not yet built.
The developed control system helps a) to operate the prototype safely and keep it at the desired working point and b) to record important time-series data of the state of the detector prototype. Those two aspects allow the control system (which might later serve as a ‘blueprint’ for the final detector) to minimize the mentioned systematic errors as much as possible and to contribute to the understanding of remaining systematic errors using correlations with the time-series data. The controlled operation of the prototype in vacuum allowed to validate the integration concepts from a wide range of mechanical and electrical aspects in an endurance test for more than a year with 24/7 operation.
The prototype for this study itself was named “PRESTO” (standing for ‘PREcursor of the Second sTatiOn of the CBM-MVD’). It represents one quadrant of an MVD detector plane, equipped with a total of 15 MIMOSA-26 sensors on the front and back side of a carrier plate. Within this thesis, major parts of the prototype itself were designed. Custom ultra-thin flat flexible cables for data and power were designed and validated. Furthermore, the CNC-machined Aluminium heatsink to mount and cool the prototype design was refined to increase thermal performance. A custom vacuum feedthrough for a total of 21 flat ribbon cables was designed and fabricated. The read-out chain for MIMOSIS-26 was extended to cover a total of 8 sensors with a single and newer TRB-3 FPGA board and was set-up with the prototype. Vacuum equipment including chambers, hoses, pumps, valves and gauges were integrated to form a large vacuum testing system. A cooling circuit for the prototype was assembled comprising an external chiller, hoses, vacuum feedthroughs, as well as temperature, flow and pressure sensors.
The control system was developed to serve the needs of the prototype, while taking the requirements of the final MVD already into account. The main design goals of the control system are:
• compatibility with the other detectors and the overall CBM experiment,
• access to real-time measurements of all necessary parameters (‘process values’),
• reliable, fail-safe operation of the detector,
• recording of all time-series data (‘archiving’),
• cost efficiency and acceptance within the physics community,
• good usability for the users (‘operators’),
• long-term maintainability.
The recorded time-series data of the process variables (i.e. sensor readings) allow a post-measurement analysis of variations in the detector performance. The longterm archiving of all relevant system parameters is therefore of outstanding importance, which is why the software intended for this purpose – called “archiver” – was given special attention in this thesis.
For this reason in particular, it is necessary to implement a comprehensive control system that allows the detector to be operated safely under these conditions and cooled effectively. Before the start of this doctoral thesis, vigilant and extensively trained operators were always necessary for this. The control system that has been developed makes it possible that, after basic training, the detector can also be operated by a less specialised shift supervisor during measurement campaigns.
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Die vorliegende Dissertation behandelt das Thema der Wechselstromleitfähigkeit nano-granularer Metalle, welche mit Hilfe der fokussierten elektronenstrahlinduzierten Direktabscheidung (FEBID) hergestellt wurden, sowie der dielektrischen Relaxation in metall-organischen Gerüstverbindungen (MOFs). Sie war eingebettet in das interdisziplinäre Projekt „Dielectric and Ferroelectric Surface-Mounted Metal-Organic Frameworks (SURMOFs) as Sensor Devices“ im Rahmen des DPG-Schwerpunktsprogramms „Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems“ (SPP 1928, COORNETs). Dabei verfolgt sie ein Sensorkonzept zur selektiven Detektion von Analytgasen. Der zentrale Erfolg der Arbeit besteht dabei in neuen Erkenntnissen über die Wechselstromleitfähigkeit nano-granularer Pt(C)-FEBID-Deponate. Die hierbei gewonnen Erkenntnisse können in Zukunft einen weiteren Baustein in der theoretischen Beschreibung dieses grundlegend interessanten und für sensorische Anwendungen wichtigen Teilgebiets der Festkörperphysik darstellen.
In this paper, we present an experimental and theoretical study of excitation processes for the heaviest stable helium-like ion, that is, He-like uranium occurring in relativistic collisions with hydrogen and argon targets. In particular, we concentrate on angular distributions of the characteristic Kα radiation following the K → L excitation of He-like uranium. We pay special attention to the magnetic sub-level population of the excited 1s2lj states, which is directly related to the angular distribution of the characteristic Kα radiation. We show that the experimental data can be well described by calculations taking into account the excitation by the target nucleus as well as by the target electrons. Moreover, we demonstrate for the first time an important influence of the electron-impact excitation process on the angular distributions of the Kα radiation produced by excitation of He-like uranium in collisions with different targets.
Charts are used to measure relative success for a large variety of cultural items. Traditional music charts have been shown to follow self-organizing principles with regard to the distribution of item lifetimes, the on-chart residence times. Here we examine if this observation holds also for (a) music streaming charts (b) book best-seller lists and (c) for social network activity charts, such as Twitter hashtags and the number of comments Reddit postings receive. We find that charts based on the active production of items, like commenting, are more likely to be influenced by external factors, in particular by the 24 h day–night cycle. External factors are less important for consumption-based charts (sales, downloads), which can be explained by a generic theory of decision-making. In this view, humans aim to optimize the information content of the internal representation of the outside world, which is logarithmically compressed. Further support for information maximization is argued to arise from the comparison of hourly, daily and weekly charts, which allow to gauge the importance of decision times with respect to the chart compilation period.
The long-awaited detection of a gravitational wave from the merger of a binary neutron star in August 2017 (GW170817) marked the beginning of the new field of multi-messenger gravitational wave astronomy. By exploiting the extracted tidal deformations of the two neutron stars from the late inspiral phase of GW170817, it was possible to constrain several global properties of the equation of state of neutron star matter. By means of fully general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations, it is possible to get an insight into the hydrodynamic evolution of matter and into the structure of the space–time deformation caused by the remnant of binary neutron star merger. Neutron star mergers represent an optimal astrophysical laboratory to investigate the phase transition from confined hadronic matter to deconfined quark matter. With future gravitational wave detectors, it will most likely be possible in the near future to investigate the hadron-quark phase transition by analyzing the spectrum of the post-merger gravitational wave of the differentially rotating hypermassive hybrid star. In contrast to hypermassive neutron stars, these highly differentially rotating objects contain deconfined strange quark matter in their slowly rotating inner region.
High-energy astrophysics plays an increasingly important role in the understanding of our universe. On one hand, this is due to ground-breaking observations, like the gravitational-wave detections of the LIGO and Virgo network or the black-hole shadow observations of the EHT collaboration. On the other hand, the field of numerical relativity has reached a level of sophistication that allows for realistic simulations that include all four fundamental forces of nature. A prime example of how observations and theory complement each other can be seen in the studies following GW170817, the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron-star merger. The same detection is also the chronological starting point of this Thesis. The plethora of information and constraints on nuclear physics derived from GW170817 in conjunction with theoretical computations will be presented in the first part of this Thesis. The second part goes beyond this detection and prepares for future observations when also the high-frequency postmerger signal will become detectable. Specifically, signatures of a quark-hadron phase transition are discussed and the specific case of a delayed phase transition is analyzed in detail. Finally, the third part of this Thesis focuses on the inclusion of radiative transport in numerical astrophysics. In the context of binary neutron-star mergers, radiation in the form of neutrinos is crucial for realistic long-term simulations. Two methods are introduced for treating radiation: the approximate state-of-the-art two-moment method (M1) and the recently developed radiative Lattice-Boltzmann method. The latter promises
to be more accurate than M1 at a comparable computational cost. Given that most methods for radiative transport or either inaccurate or unfeasible, the derivation of this new method represents a novel and possibly paradigm-changing contribution to an accurate inclusion of radiation in numerical astrophysics.
Radon adsorption in charcoal
(2021)
Radon is pervasive in our environment and the second leading cause of lung cancer induction after smoking. Therefore, the measurement of radon activity concentrations in homes is important. The use of charcoal is an easy and cost-efficient method for this purpose, as radon can bind to charcoal via Van der Waals interaction. Admittedly, there are potential influencing factors during exposure that can distort the results and need to be investigated. Consequently, charcoal was exposed in a radon chamber at different parameters. Afterward, the activity of the radon decay products 214Pb and 214Bi was measured and extrapolated to the initial radon activity in the sample. After an exposure of 1 h, around 94% of the maximum value was attained and used as a limit for the subsequent exposure time. Charcoal was exposed at differing humidity ranging from 5 to 94%, but no influence on radon adsorption could be detected. If the samples were not sealed after exposure, radon desorbed with an effective half-life of around 31 h. There is also a strong dependence of radon uptake on the chemical structure of the recipient material, which is interesting for biological materials or diffusion barriers as this determines accumulation and transport.
Chiral symmetry represents a fundamental concept lying at the core of particle and nuclear physics. Its spontaneous breaking in vacuum can be exploited to distinguish chiral hadronic partners, whose masses differ. In fact, the features of this breaking serve as guiding principles for the construction of effective approaches of QCD at low energies, e.g., the chiral perturbation theory, the linear sigma model, the (Polyakov)–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model, etc. At high temperatures/densities chiral symmetry can be restored bringing the chiral partners to be nearly degenerated in mass. At vanishing baryochemical potential, such restoration follows a smooth transition, and the chiral companions reach this degeneration above the transition temperature. In this work I review how different realizations of chiral partner degeneracy arise in different effective theories/models of QCD. I distinguish the cases where the chiral states are either fundamental degrees of freedom or (dynamically-generated) composed states. In particular, I discuss the intriguing case in which chiral symmetry restoration involves more than two chiral partners, recently addressed in the literature.
This thesis explores the phase diagrams of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) and quark-meson (QM) model in the mean-field approximation and beyond. The focus lies in the investigation of the interplay between inhomogeneous chiral condensates and two-flavor color superconductivity.
In the first part of this thesis, we study the NJL model with 2SC diquarks in the mean-field approximation and determine the dispersion relations for quasiparticle excitations for generic spatial modulations of the chiral condensate in the presence of a homogeneous 2SC-diquark condensate, provided that the dispersion relations in the absence of color superconductivity are known. We then compare two different Ansätze for the chiral order parameter, the chiral density wave (CDW) and the real-kink crystal (RKC). For both Ansätze we find for specific diquark couplings a so-called coexistence phase where both the inhomogeneous chiral condensate and the diquark condensate coexist. Increasing the diquark coupling disfavors the coexistence phase in favor of a pure diquark phase.
On the other hand, decreasing the diquark coupling favors the inhomogeneous phase over the coexistence phase.
In the second part of this thesis the functional renormalization group is employed to study the phase diagram of the quark-meson-diquark model. We observe that the region of the phase diagram found in previous studies, where the entropy density takes on unphysical negative values, vanishes when including diquark degrees of freedom. Furthermore, we perform a stability analysis of the homogeneous phase and compare the results with those of previous studies. We find that an increasing diquark coupling leads to a smaller region of instability as the 2SC phase extends to a smaller chemical potential. We also find a region where simultaneously an instability occurs and a non-vanishing diquark condensate forms, which is an indication of the existence of a coexistence phase in accordance with the results of the first part of this work.
Bohmian mechanics as formulated originally in 1952, has been useful in the implementation of numerical methods applied to quantum mechanics. The scientific community though has had ever since a critical thought about it. Therefore, there are still points to be clarified and rectified. The two main problems are basically: Bohmian mechanics gives a privilege role to the position representation. Secondly, the current interpretation of Bohmian trajectories has been recently proven wrong.
In this context, in Chapter 2, new complex Bohmian quantities are defined; so that they allow the capacity to formulate Bohmian mechanics in any arbitrary continuous representation, for instance, the momentum representation. This Chapter is fully based on two articles, regarding the proposed complex Bohmian formulation and its extension into momentum space.
Chapter 3 deals with a redefinition and reinterpretation of the Bohmian trajectories from the handling of the continuity equation, this is done without any need of additional postulates or interpretations. Also, it is proved that Bohmian mechanics is actually more than a projective aspect of the Wigner function.
As a third point, Chapter 4 presents a sytematic treatment of the hydrodynamic scheme of Bohmian mechanics. Then, a brief summary of the transport equations in Bohmian mechanics is done. Next, a unified hydrodynamic treatment is found for the Bohmian mechanics. This treatment is useful to sketch, a Bohmian treatment to efficiently find the steady value of the transmission integral.
In Chapter 5 conclusions of this thesis are drawn.
It is conjectured that in cosmological applications the particle current is not modified but finite heat or energy flow. Therefore, comoving Eckart frame is a suitable choice, as it merely ceases the charge and particle diffusion and conserves charges and particles. The cosmic evolution of viscous hadron and parton epochs in casual and non-casual Eckart frame is analyzed. By proposing equations of state deduced from recent lattice QCD simulations including pressure p, energy density ρ, and temperature T, the Friedmann equations are solved. We introduce expressions for the temporal evolution of the Hubble parameter H˙, the cosmic energy density ρ˙, and the share η˙ and the bulk viscous coefficient ζ˙. We also suggest how the bulk viscous pressure Π could be related to H. We conclude that the relativistic theory of fluids, the Eckart frame, and the finite viscous coefficients play essential roles in the cosmic evolution, especially in the hadron and parton epochs
s-processing in asymptotic giant branch stars in the light of revised neutron-capture cross sections
(2021)
Current AGB stellar models provide an adequate description of the s-process nucleosynthesis that occurs. Nonetheless, they still suffer from many uncertainties related to the modeling of the 13C pocket formation and the adopted nuclear reaction rates. For many important s-process isotopes, a best set of neutron-capture cross sections was recently re-evaluated. Using stellar models prescribing that the 13C pocket is a by-product of magnetic-buoyancy-induced mixing phenomena, s-process calculations were carried out with this database. Significant effects are found for a few s-only and branching point isotopes, pointing out the need for improved neutron-capture cross section measurements at low energy.
Cortical pyramidal neurons have a complex dendritic anatomy, whose function is an active research field. In particular, the segregation between its soma and the apical dendritic tree is believed to play an active role in processing feed-forward sensory information and top-down or feedback signals. In this work, we use a simple two-compartment model accounting for the nonlinear interactions between basal and apical input streams and show that standard unsupervised Hebbian learning rules in the basal compartment allow the neuron to align the feed-forward basal input with the top-down target signal received by the apical compartment. We show that this learning process, termed coincidence detection, is robust against strong distractions in the basal input space and demonstrate its effectiveness in a linear classification task.
The realization of a fast and robust closed orbit feedback (COFB) system for the on-ramp orbit correction at SIS18 synchrotron of FAIR project is reported in this thesis. SIS18 has some peculiar behaviors including on-ramp optics variation, very short lengths of the ramps (200 ms to 1 s) and a cycle-to-cycle variation of beam parameters. The realized fast COFB system being robust against above mentioned features of SIS18 is a first of its kind and the course to its realization led to some novel contributions in the field of closed orbit correction. A new method relying on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based decomposition of the orbit response matrix (ORM) has been introduced, exploiting the symmetry in the arrangement of beam position monitors (BPMs) and the corrector magnets in the synchrotrons. A nearest-circulant approximation has also been introduced for synchrotrons having slight deviation from the symmetry, making the method applicable to a vast majority of synchrotrons. Moreover, the performance and the stability analysis of COFB systems in the presence of ORM mismatch between the synchrotron and the feedback controller is presented. The COFB systems are divided into slow and fast regimes and a new stability criterion consistent with measurements, is introduced. The practicality of the criterion is verified experimentally at COSY Jülich and is used for the analysis of various sources of ORM mismatch at SIS18. The commissioning of the SIS18 COFB system is also reported in detail which relies on Libera Hadron as the main hardware resource for the controller implementation. The on-ramp orbit correction is demonstrated for the horizontal plane of SIS18, for the disturbance rejection up to 600 Hz.
Predicting the cumulative medical load of COVID-19 outbreaks after the peak in daily fatalities
(2021)
The distinct ways the COVID-19 pandemic has been unfolding in different countries and regions suggest that local societal and governmental structures play an important role not only for the baseline infection rate, but also for short and long-term reactions to the outbreak. We propose to investigate the question of how societies as a whole, and governments in particular, modulate the dynamics of a novel epidemic using a generalization of the SIR model, the reactive SIR (short-term and long-term reaction) model. We posit that containment measures are equivalent to a feedback between the status of the outbreak and the reproduction factor. Short-term reaction to an outbreak corresponds in this framework to the reaction of governments and individuals to daily cases and fatalities. The reaction to the cumulative number of cases or deaths, and not to daily numbers, is captured in contrast by long-term reaction. We present the exact phase space solution of the controlled SIR model and use it to quantify containment policies for a large number of countries in terms of short and long-term control parameters. We find increased contributions of long-term control for countries and regions in which the outbreak was suppressed substantially together with a strong correlation between the strength of societal and governmental policies and the time needed to contain COVID-19 outbreaks. Furthermore, for numerous countries and regions we identified a predictive relation between the number of fatalities within a fixed period before and after the peak of daily fatality counts, which allows to gauge the cumulative medical load of COVID-19 outbreaks that should be expected after the peak. These results suggest that the proposed model is applicable not only for understanding the outbreak dynamics, but also for predicting future cases and fatalities once the effectiveness of outbreak suppression policies is established with sufficient certainty. Finally, we provide a web app (https://itp.uni-frankfurt.de/covid-19/) with tools for visualising the phase space representation of real-world COVID-19 data and for exporting the preprocessed data for further analysis.