35 YEARS OF RESEARCH AT THE INFN GRAN SASSO NATIONAL LABORATORIES

Interview with Ezio Previtali, professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca and INFN researcher, director of the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories.

The celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the founding of INFN, which will end in September, provided the ideal setting to commemorate the foundation of many of the Divisions and Laboratories of the institute, spread throughout the country and branching out throughout the national university system. Among the structures that celebrated such milestones were the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories, a unique scientific reality and international benchmark for the field of neutrino physics and the search for dark matter, as well as a cutting-edge technology development center, which blew out 35 candles on 17 June. Founded in the late 1970s from an idea of Antonino Zichichi, then President of INFN, the Gran Sasso National Laboratories were established in 1985, when, alongside the tunnel connecting the Teramo and Aquila sides of the Gran Sasso massif, excavation work on the three rooms that constitute its underground infrastructure was completed. The start of the centre's scientific activities, on the other hand, dates back to 1987. Thanks to the 1,400 metres of rock above them, capable of shielding natural radiation, the laboratories have hosted innovative experiments of high sensitivity, such as Borexino and OPERA, just to name the most well-known, which generated fundamental results, such as the observation of the major stellar nuclear processes taking place in the Sun and detection the neutrino oscillation. After 35 years of activity and success, the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) continue to fulfil their role as a privileged vantage point for rare physical phenomena, and are now preparing to welcome next-generation experiments through major maintenance and upgrade works. Coordinating this exciting transition phase is Ezio Previtali, head of LNGS since 15 October 2020. ...

What is the evaluation of the activities carried out by the Laboratories over the past two years and what do you think have been the main scientific and non-scientific achievements from the beginning of your office to date?

Even net of the latest success achieved by the Borexino experiment(see 'Borexino obtains the first experimental evidence of how massive stars shine', ed.), there has certainly been an important evolution of the experiments involving the direct search for dark matter, as demonstrated by the recent result of the XENON detector, which continues to be a global benchmark for research in this area.

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RESEARCH

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APPOINTMENT

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