PEOPLE
LHCB: ON THE TRACKS OF NEW PHYSICS
Interview with Vincenzo Vagnoni, INFN researcher, spokesperson of the international Scientific Collaboration of the LHCb experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
There has a been a change at the top of one of the main scientific collaborations that operate at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, the LHCb collaboration, responsible for the construction and operation of the detector with the same name, as well as the scientific analysis of data acquired by the large experimental apparatus. After his election at the start of the year, Vincenzo Vagnoni, researcher at the INFN Bologna Division, succeeded on 1 July Chris Parkes, who held the role since 2020. Vagnoni will now lead the LHCb international collaboration, becoming the new head of a community that today counts over 1500 scientists, engineers, and technicians. The passing of the baton occurs in a phase of intense scientific activity for the LHCb collaboration, currently engaged in the detector's third period of data acquisition (Run3). This run can benefit from a substantial increase in the detector’s sensitivity, the result of the upgrade it underwent between 2018 and 2022 during the long shutdown of the LHC (Long Shutdown2). The appointment of Vagnoni is a new proof of the significant role played by Italy and INFN over the years within the LHCb collaboration. The latter relies on over 200 Italian researchers, who have substantially contributed to the project, both in terms of science and coordination. ...
The history of the LHCb collaboration is characterised by a strong Italian contribution, whose activity is coordinated by INFN. When was the collaboration born and what contribution does INFN provide?
The collaboration was born at the end of the 1990s. Right from the start, the INFN component was central to the experiment, constituting the most numerous community, along with that of the United Kingdom.NEWS
SPACE
EUROPE’S EUCLID MISSION LIFTS OFF
Euclid space mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral, USA, on July 1st. It is a scientific project of the European Space Agency (ESA), in which Italy participates through the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and INFN. Euclid is equipped with a 1.2 m reflecting telescope and two scientific instruments: the VISible instrument, (VIS) and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, (NISP).
(Credit Image: SpaceX)
RESEARCH
THE ROLE OF THEORETICAL MODELS IN THE NEW ICECUBE DISCOVERY
The IceCube experiment, the world's largest neutrino telescope that has been studying the cosmos from the depths of Antarctic ice for over a decade, has made a new and unexpected observation: a diffuse neutrino emission of very high energies, from 500 GeV up to several PeV, concentrated along the Milky Way.
AWARDS
MASSIMO FERRARIO AND LUCIO ROSSI ARE AWARDED THE 2023 ENRICO FERMI PRIZE OF THE ITALIAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
The 2023 “Enrico Fermi” Prize of the Italian Physical Society (SIF) has been awarded ex-aequo to Massimo Ferrario, researcher at the INFN Frascati National Laboratories, Lucio Rossi, professor at the University of Milan and INFN researcher, and Frank Zimmermann, researcher at CERN.
APPLICATIONS
AT IEO A "TUMOR-SEEKING" PROBE HELPS SURGERY
A joint team of physicians and researchers from the European Institute of Oncology (IEO), INFN and Sapienza University of Rome has verified with a clinical study that the use of an innovative "tumor-seeking" probe improves the effectiveness of gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumor surgery.
INFRASTRUCTURES
INFN AND ALCATEL SUBMARINE NETWORKS SIGN CONTRACT FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE UNDERSEA NEUTRINO TELESCOPE KM3NET
NFN and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have signed a contract to supply and install a cable termination frame to deliver power and communications connectivity to the underwater multidisciplinary laboratory KM3NeT.
FOCUS
THE SND@LHC EXPERIMENT OBSERVES THE FIRST NEUTRINOS PRODUCED IN A PARTICLE COLLIDER
The goal of the international collaboration SND@LHC, which involves a significant contribution from INFN, is to use CERN’s Large Hadron Collider as a source for studying neutrinos, elementary particles characterised by their very weak interaction with matter, emitted as a result of proton collisions inside the super accelerator. Having completed the production of its experimental apparatus in March last year, the researchers of SND@LHC, together with colleagues from the FASER collaboration (another experiment at CERN that studies neutrinos), published on July 29 in the journal Physical Review Letters. This includes the first results of the analysis of the data acquired during 2022, which reveal the first observation of high-energy muon neutrinos produced in the LHC. As well as opening a window of investigation into the properties of neutrinos, the measurement, which is the first of its kind, is an important technological success. It confirms the capacity of the detection system adopted by SND@LHC to identify very elusive particles. ...