International research infrastructures in Italy

Italy hosts two important pieces of international research infrastructure dedicated to the research into gravitational waves and neutrinos. Here, INFN has a front-line role in terms both of the research and management appointments and in terms of the financial contribution. These are the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) and the European submarine facility KM3NeT. In addition, Italy is a candidate to host a third large piece of infrastructure, the Einstein Telescope (ET), in Sardinia, in Nuorese. This is a third-generation gravitational wave observatory that will be built in Europe.

EGO

KM3NeT

European Gravitational Observatory – EGO

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) houses and manages the international experiment for researching gravitational waves, Virgo. The experiment is located in Cascina, near Pisa. It is an interferometer antenna for researching gravitational waves, a project led in a collaboration with the French institute CNRS IN2P3 and the Dutch institute Nikhef and established as a consortium. The annual contribution that INFN disburses to EGO totals XXX.
Virgo is currently one of the three detectors in the world that has observed gravitational waves, together with two American interferometers LIGO, with which it has jointly operated since 2017. The experiment’s international scientific collaboration involves more than 800 researchers, 115 institutions from 15 countries.
In February 2016, the LIGO and VIRGO scientific collaborations jointly announced the first observation of gravitational waves and, the following year, the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Barry Barish and Kip S. Thorne, both of Calthech, and Rainer Weiss of MIT, for their role in discovering gravitational waves. Again in 2017, LIGO and VIRGO detected the first gravitational wave event generated by the fusion of two neutron stars, which marked the start of the multi-messenger astronomy era.

Go to EGO website

Aerial view of the VIRGO interferometer (© EGO-INFN)

KM3NeT

KM3NeT is a sub-marine research facility for neutrinos being installed in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, the biggest of the Northern Hemisphere. It comprises two neutrino telescopes: ARCA off the coast of Portopalo di Capo Passero in Sicily (Italy) and ORCA off the coast of Toulon (France). The facility has the purpose of studying neutrinos. The goal is twofold, studying their properties and exploiting neutrinos to probe the most distant astrophysical sources of the universe, like supernovae, which emit gamma ray bursts and active galactic nuclei. Studying these sources will make it possible to investigate the remotest universe, going back to eras close to the big bang with a complementary approach to that of CERN’s LHC accelerator in Geneva. The submarine infrastructure alsohouses instruments dedicated to sciences of the earth and sea and is, thus, also a precious multidisciplinary laboratory. The research infrastructure is included in the European ESFRI plan, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure, the PNIR (Italian National Research Infrastructure Plan), and the research infrastructure plan of the Sicilian Region. It will have a huge economic and social impact on Sicily, Campania, and Apulia, contributing to reducing the gap between the South and Centre-North of Italy.

The development of the Italian infrastructure was made possible thanks to the leadership and support of INFN in various national NOP and ROP programmes of the Sicilian Region, as well as Design and Preparatory Phase projects funded by the European Community. The involvement of many Italian businesses in the mechanics, electronics, imaging, and, more generally, submarine technologies sector was also fundamental. In preparation for responding to the MUR tender for NRRP funding of actions to strengthen large research infrastructure, the KM3NeT4RR project involves activities in all INFN units participating in KM3NeT. The budget required for strengthening ARCA through KM3NeT4RR is € 77 million. 80% of the planned investment will be given to the South. Using NOP and ROP Sicilian Region funding, INFN has already made investments worth € 95 million.

Go to KM3NeT website