MOST PRECISE MEASUREMENT OF W BOSON MASS, CDF'S LATEST RESULT

Interview with Giorgio Chiarelli, INFN researcher and co-spokesperson of the CDF collaboration, and Giorgio Bellettini, professor emeritus at the University of Pisa, among the promoters of the CDF project and the first non-US spokesperson.

One of the richest, longest and most steady evidence of the Italian contribution to the history of particle physics is certainly represented by the case of the W boson, one of the two mediating bosons of the electroweak force. Since the formulation of the first theoretical hypothesis on its existence to its first experimental observation, the history of the W boson speaks, indeed, Italian. This history has its roots in the work carried out by Enrico Fermi and the "Ragazzi di via Panisperna" in the 1930s and was crowned in 1984 with the contribution of Carlo Rubbia, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of this particle. A story that continues to be characterized by the Italian colours, as demonstrated by the publication in the journal Science, on April 8, of the last long-awaited paper by the international collaboration of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment, in which Italy participates with INFN. ...

Giorgio Chiarelli, what was the process that led to this latest CDF result?

The measurement is based on an analysis of events (proton-antiproton collisions) collected during run 2 of the Tevatron from 2001 to 2011. The data analysis required a lot of time, effort and care by the researchers of the collaboration for several reasons: the first is related to the fact that this result is the final work of the experiment on the mass of the W boson, one of the fundamental parameters of the standard model; the second is related to the increasing understanding, acquired over the years, of the operation of our detector: this allowed us to correct many instrumental effects, and to progressively reduce various uncertainties associated with the measurement of the mass of W.

STANDWITHUKRAINE

INFN ALLOCATES THE FIRST FUNDS TO HOST SCIENTISTS AFFECTED BY THE WAR

The Board of Directors of the INFN, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, during the meeting of March 31 approved the resolution on financial measures adopted by the Institute to support scientists who are suffering the consequences of the war in Ukraine. In particular, the resolution provides for the allocation of the first funds, amounting to € 200,000, to activate initiatives for the benefit of students, university professors, researchers and scientists who come in Italy to work at the INFN Laboratories and Divisions because of the ongoing political and military crisis.

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STANDWITHUKRAINE

SAVE THE UKRAINE MONUMENTS

Besides the inacceptable losses of human lives and the distress of the population which is causing millions of refugees, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops and the ongoing war put at risk the cultural heritage of this country. They may irreparably destroy monuments, artworks, remnants of the past, and and with them witnesses of the history and cultural identity of an entire nation are lost.

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RESEARCH

CUORE PLACES NEW LIMITS ON THE BIZARRE BEHAVIOR OF NEUTRINOS

Researchers at the CUORE experiment (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) announced in Nature on April 6th new results on the nature of neutrino, which also demonstrate the exceptionality of the technology, capable of maintaining a detector weighing more than 700 kg at temperatures close to absolute zero, for more than three years.

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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

DURCH NWO-I, NEW ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN GRAVITATIONAL OBSERVATORY

NWO-I the Netherlands Scientific Research Institutes, has officially become an associate member of the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) consortium, along with founding members of EGO CNRS and INFN.

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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

THE FIRST ITALIAN WORKSHOP ON THE GREAT ACCELERATOR OF THE FUTURE

The First FCC-Italy Workshop was recently held in Rome. This was the first Italian workshop dedicated to the project for the successor of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the Future Circular Collider. The event, organized by INFN, was attended by 120 researchers, and 15 reports were presented.

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MULTIDISCIPLYNARY REASEARCH

NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND CLIMATE: INFN PARTNER OF REMO, PROJECT FOR THE MONITORING OF SEA SPECIES

Studying the impact of climate change on corals and molluscs with nuclear physics tools and techniques: this is the goal of the REMO project, of which INFN is the only foreign partner, launched in March by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation as part of the national Recovery Fund.

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TRAINING 

FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE TO EVERYDAY LIFE: APPROXIMATELY 300 TEACHERS AT THE PID@HOME COURSE

Gravitational waves, spin glasses and Higgs boson are examples of research that in recent years have won the Nobel Prize, all marked by a significant Italian contribution. Nevertheless, understanding the reasons for a Nobel Prize and the implications that these great discoveries may have in everyday life is not always easy. The third edition of PID@HOME, a free training course dedicated to middle school and high school teachers, which ended on Monday 21 March, focused on these topics.

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EVENTS

PHYSICS FOR GROWTH AND PEACE AT EXPO2020 DUBAI

On Wednesday 9 March, at the Italian Pavilion of Expo2020 Dubai, the round table Physics that catalyses growth and unites people was held, an event organised by INFN, partner of the Italian Pavilion. The protagonists of the meeting, which focused on the prospects of research in fundamental physics and the role of large research infrastructures for scientific activity and for innovation, growth, economy, culture and society, were Fabiola Gianotti, Director General of CERN, Anna Grassellino, Director of the SQMS Center at Fermilab, Andrea Lausi, Scientific Director of SESAME, and Antonio Zoccoli, President of INFN.

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