PEOPLE

SEPTEMBER 2016

INFN PROJECT TO STUDY NEUTRINOS RECEIVES EUROPEAN FUNDING
Interview with Manuela Cavallaro, researcher at the Southern National Laboratories (LNS) of the INFN in Catania, who has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant 2016


When Manuela Cavallaro heard that the European Research Council (ERC) had awarded her the ERC Starting Grant 2016 (ERC-2016-SGT), her reaction was a mixture of enthusiasm and incredulity. The prestigious award supports young talented researchers who are starting their careers. The physicist from Catania, a researcher at the INFN Southern National Laboratories (LNS), received the grant for research in fundamental physics. The name of the project is NURE (NUclear REactions for neutrinoless double beta decay) and the € 1,271 million grant is the full amount of funding requested. There were almost 3,000 applications and the European Research Council has awarded 325 ERC-2016-SGTs to young European researchers, for a total of € 485 million. We asked this young researcher at the LNS to explain the importance of this scientific project.

 

What is the ERC-funded project about?

This is a fundamental physics project that spans the fields of neutrino and nuclear physics. It acts a bit like a bridge between these two different aspects of physics and the ERC was impressed by this feature of the project. At the LNS we will conduct experiments on systems relevant to double beta decay, an extremely rare decay process that occurs spontaneously, in which a nucleus is transformed into another nucleus. The idea behind the project is to use nuclear reactions, in particular double charge ...

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NEWS

SEPTEMBER 2016


RESEARCH

CUORE: DETECTOR INSTALLATION COMPLETED

The CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) of INFN has completed the installation of the 19 towers that make up the detector. ...

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RESEARCH

FROM DEEP UNDER THE GRAN SASSO MASSIF TO THE HEART OF RED GIANTS

A rare nuclear reaction that occurs in stars, specifically in red giants, has been observed with unprecedented precision by LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of INFN. ...

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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

INFN AT THE AFRICAN SCHOOL OF PHYSICS 2016 TO RE-LAUNCH RESEARCH IN AFRICA

The fourth edition of the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications (ASP-2016) has been held in Kigali, Rwanda. It brought together 75 students from universities in 28 African countries. ...

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NOMINATION

PAOLO GIUBELLINO APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF GSI AND FAIR, IN GERMANY

Paolo Giubellino, Research Manager at the INFN ) has been appointed Scientific Director of the prestigious GSI Helmholzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung ...

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FOCUS ON


FROM THE STUDY OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES A DIAGNOSTIC PROTOCOL FOR ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

The medical diagnostic protocol developed as a result of the nextMR project is currently in the trial stage at Genoa hospital and is an example of how expertise devoleped in basic physics research can be directly of use in medical diagnostics. Its primary objectives include the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and, more generally, medical diagnosis in the fields of neurology and oncology. The nextMR project is working on the direct application of data analysis, a key feature of physics research in terms of human and computing resources. At all levels, from high-energy physics to the search for dark matter and gravitational waves, researchers have had to develop increasingly sophisticated measurement systems capable of extracting signals from background noise, and create adequate computing resources. Starting from this potential, about ten years ago a team of physicists at the Genoa division of the INFN set about developing methods and systems for analysing clinical data, using processing techniques already used to some extent in basic research, but which required substantial adaptation before they could be used in medicine. The aim is identical to that of basic physics research and consists in obtaining a measurement by extracting a signal from the noise, i.e. distinguishing the pathology from "normality". However, with medical data, the "background noise" depends on the individual patient's clinical history and specific characteristics and not on particles which are made up of identical "subjects", as it is in physic. ...

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INFORMATION


cover image:

Bottom view of the CUORE towers installed in the cryostat.

 

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