PEOPLE

July 2015

AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN THE HEART OF EUROPE
Interview with Francesco Sette, Director General of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)


Light for Science. This expression encapsulates the mission of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and is the perfect slogan for the UNESCO International Year of Light. It is light itself, specifically synchrotron radiation light, the main focus of this centre of excellence for basic, applied and industrial research, which uses and makes available to the international scientific community the most intense source of X-rays of the world, a hundred thousand billion times brighter than the X-rays used inside hospitals. Synchrotron light is electromagnetic radiation, emitted by relativistic electrons through a wise manipulation of their trajectory with powerful magnetic fields. Infact, photons with various wavelengths ranging, from infrared to hard X-rays, are created when electrons are driven at a speed close to the speed of light inside a storage ring, and are deflected by magnetic fields. Opened in 1994 in Grenoble, France, ESRF was founded also thanks to the expertise at INFN, especially at the Frascati National Laboratory, involved from the beginning in the design of the storage ring of ESRF. ...

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NEWS

July 2015

Institutions
PRIME MINISTER RENZI VISITS CERN

On 7 July, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited CERN, in Geneva. Renzi, accompanied by Stefania Giannini, Minister of Instruction, University and Research, was welcomed by Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, together with Fabiola Gianotti, designated Director, Sergio Bertolucci, Director for Research and Computing, and the Nobel Prize Carlo Rubbia. ...

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Research
PENTAQUARKS OBSERVED

LHCb, one of the four major experiments at the LHC Large Hadron Collider, CERN’s supercollider in Geneva, reported the discovery of a class of exotic particles composed of five quarks, known as pentaquarks. The pentaquark that was observed is not simply a new particle but a new way in which quarks, which are the fundamental constituents of protons and neutrons ...

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International Cooperation
ITALY-UNITED STATES SIGN FRAMEWORK
AGREEMENT FOR PHYSICS RESEARCH

A scientific-technological agreement between Italy and the United States was signed on 17 July in Washington. The agreement aims to promote cooperation on research into particle physics and nuclear physics. The document was signed by Italy's Ambassador to the United States, Claudio Bisogniero, representing the Ministry ...

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Dissemination
INFN AT THE CHINA SCIENCE FESTIVAL IN BEIJING

Light and colours. For the International Year of Light, IYL2015. This is the theme of the second China Science Festival and Youth Science Education Expo 2015, Beijing’s science festival. ...

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FOCUS ON


PURSUING THE QUEST FOR MAGNETIC MONOPOLES AT THE LHC WITH THE MoEDAL EXPERIMENT

There is one special particle, among all the unknown ones which physicists hope to discover with the restarting of the LHC: the magnetic monopole, the existence of which was theorised in 1931 by Nobel Laureate Paul Dirac. Italy has been committed to the quest for monopoles for decades, particularly thanks to researchers from the Bologna University and INFN division*. Magnetic monopoles would represent the counterpart of the electric charge in Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. In fact, while there are separate particles with a positive or negative electric charge, it is impossible to isolate a magnetic pole: if we break a magnet, we get two magnets, each with its own south pole and north pole. The quest for magnetic monopoles, which began at the time of their theoretical introduction over 80 years ago, continues today with the MoEDAL experiment (The Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC). The search is being conducted by an international group of physicists from 21 institutions and 12 countries, including researchers from the Bologna INFN division.To prove the existence of magnetic monopoles, MoEDAL makes use of stacks consisting of several sheets of two different types of nuclear track detectors: the CR39®, a polymer widely used for the production of sunglass lenses, and Makfrol®, a polycarbonate widely available on the market. The stacks cover a total area of approximately 25 m2, ...

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CONTACT



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+32 2 2902 274

INFORMATION


cover image:

The LHCb detector at CERN

 

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