Événements, Annonces, Publications
When people talk about CERN, they inevitably think of the large-scale experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But the European Laboratory for Particle Physics has even more to offer: A small but powerful experiment called FASER is currently being assembled at CERN, involving research teams led by Geneva physics professors Anna Sfyrla and Giuseppe Iacobucci and by Bern physics professor Akitaka Ariga. FASER proves: Even comparatively inexpensive experiments have the potential for groundbreaking scientific findings.
Image : Claire Antel / FASERAlmost ten years ago, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) made headlines with the discovery of the Higgs particle. These days, the LHCb experiment at CERN has published results that also have the makings of a real scientific sensation: studies of the so-called beauty quark suggest that there could be a fifth, super-weak force in addition to the four known forces of nature (electromagnetism, gravitation, strong and weak interaction). However, CERN researchers still have a lot of work ahead of them to confirm this spectacular hypothesis. At the forefront: particle physicists from the University of Zurich and EPF Lausanne
Image : LHCb, CERNMaturanden -innen, Kollegium Spiritus Sanctus in Brig
Image : Stéphane GuisardWie entsteht eine Weltraummission zur Erforschung der Sonne? Was braucht es, um ein Weltraumexperiment zu konzipieren und zu bauen? Wie kommt es in den Weltraum und sammelt dort seine Messdaten? Wie werden diese übermittelt und was passiert mit den Daten, wenn sie am Boden ankommen? Und wie beeinflusst das Ganze unseren Alltag?
Image : PMODMinisymposium on Targeted Alpha Therapy using Terbium and Other Oncological Solutions
Until his retirement in 2017, Martin Pohl was a physics professor at the University of Geneva and worked on particle physics research projects for almost half a century. Drawing on this wealth of experience, a book has been written in which Pohl knowledgeably traces the developmental strands of this fundamental discipline. The culmination is the 'Standard Model' of particle physics - for Pohl a scientific highlight and a burden at the same time.
Image : Martin PohlBeim Programm des Samstagvormittags steht die Person Bürgi Pate für den Leitgedanken «Neudenken, Andersdenken, Umdenken». In den Vorträgen soll die breite Öffentlichkeit mit scheinbar provozierenden Themen von aktueller Bedeutung zum Nachdenken angeregt werden.
This community roadmap summarizes a survey of the Swiss large-scale infrastructure requirements in the broad field of photon science for the years 2025–2028, drawing from the current situation both in Switzerland and abroad. The Swiss Society for Photon Science (SSPh) collected the scientific visions and compiled the needs of the community of photon science, which encompasses all research areas that work to generate, manipulate and detect photons or use them to investigate or control complex assemblies of matter.
This community roadmap presents the visions for future research in particle and astroparticle physics in Switzerland and formulates the needs of these fields in terms of research infrastructure in the years 2025-2028 and beyond. It was established under the auspices of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP), which issued its first roadmap already in 2004 and conducted dedicated roadmap-planning workshops in 2018 and 2020.
This community roadmap presents a broad overview of the current status of neutron science in Switzerland and derives a set of recommendations for future developments. It is the result of a community effort led by the Swiss Neutron Science Society (SNSS) with the main objectives to survey and analyse the unique contributions that neutron probes provide across scientific and technological fields and disciplines; and provisions needed to ensure continuing and sustainable success.
Swiss Particle Physics researchers are very proud to announce that UZH people worked directly on this measurement and had a leading role on this analysis, EPFL and UZH are very prominent in LHCb in both analysis and hardware.
L'UNESCO célèbre chaque année le 16 mai la Journée internationale de la lumière (IDL en anglais). Il s'agit d'une initiative mondiale annuelle pour l'appréciation de la lumière et du rôle qu'elle joue dans la science, la culture et l'art, l'éducation et le développement durable, ainsi que dans des domaines aussi divers que la médecine, les communications et l'énergie.
The workshop will be virtual and will include sessions with talks and discussions. A panel discussion will conclude the workshop.
Grants are awarded to promising high-level research projects in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics carried out by individual scientists or research units in one of the S&T-lagging countries identified by TWAS.
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 100
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 102
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 104 August 2020
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 103
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 101
The technical know-how that physicists use in research could soon serve in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. An international team of scientists with strong Swiss participation has developed a ventilator in record time that could help in the future against lung diseases like Corona, especially in countries with a precarious medical infrastructure.
We are delighted to inform you about the upcoming AOAC Europe - SFC Symposium 2021. This symposium will be held as an online conference but if the situation allows it we will offer a hybrid meeting with site events. Please take a look at the preliminary program and the impressive list of confirmed key note speakers and speakers
In the laboratories of modern physics the elementary components of matter are studied. To do this, scientists sometimes build artificial atoms to help them understand the laws of matter. A research team at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Villigen/AG) uses a specifically modified helium atom to determine the exact mass and other properties of pions. Pions could help to understand more precisely where atomic nuclei get their mass from.
This is some text copied from the meeting website put up by fribourg he 2021 annual meeting of the SGK/SSCr and general assembly will take place at the department of chemistry, University of Fribourg on Thursday 2nd of September 2021. Invited speakers from academia, selected oral presentations and a poster session will show recent developments in the field. he 2021 annual meeting of the SGK/SSCr and general assembly will take place at the department of chemistry, University of Fribourg on Thursday 2nd of September 2021. Invited speakers from academia, selected oral presentations and a poster session will show recent developments in the field.
Presents a novel combination of essays with contributors from big research organizations, funding agencies and experts in economics
Le samedi 18 Septembre 2021, un symposium public est consacré au physicien Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923).
Eine abendliche Exkursion mit Vortrag von Dr. Jürg Niederhauser, Eidgenössisches Institut für Metrologie METAS
In naher Zukunft möchten wir verschiedenste Jugendprojekte im Kanton Aargau umsetzen. Geplant sind zum Beispiel naturwissenschaftliche Praktika, Exkursionen, Vorträge oder Mentorate für schriftliche Arbeiten.
Ce document présente les résultats de l'enquête de la Plateforme Mathématiques, Astronomie et Physique, qui a recueilli en juin-juillet 2020 les diverses opinions des chercheuses et chercheurs actifs en Suisse sur la transition vers des données de recherche ouvertes.
Claudia Merlassino was born in Genoa, studied physics in Milan and completed her doctorate at the University of Bern in October 2019, since then she has been doing research at Oxford University in the UK. At the age of 28, the Italian experimental physicist has already made a remarkable journey as a researcher. She is now receiving the PhD prize in Swiss particle physics - among other things for her findings in the context of the most massive of all elementary particles.
Executive summary of an analysis prepared by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) for the European Physical Society (EPS)
On June 19th CERN Council adopted the update of the "European Strategy for Particle Physics 2020". This document updates an earlier strategy paper that was adopted by the Council in 2013, just after the Higgs discovery in 2012. It identifies the medium and long-term priorities of fundamental research in particle physics and thus forms an important basis for the construction of the European research infrastructure. The implications of this strategy update for Swiss particle physics are answered by Rainer Wallny, Professor of Particle Physics at ETH Zurich and President of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP), the umbrella organisation of Swiss particle physics.
The delta+ is a type of baryon, the family of sub-atomic particles to which the more well-known proton and neutron belong. A team of physics enthusiasts at the International School of Geneva is working intensively on these extremely unstable elementary particles. In September they will travel to Hamburg for an experiment at the renowned particle physics research institute DESY. They owe this extraordinary research trip to winning this year's “Beamline for Schools” (BL4S) competition at CERN.
Ein Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Thomas Stocker, Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern
In dieser Folge haben wir uns mit Professor Ruedi Füchslin von der Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, kurz ZHAW, über Künstliche Intelligenz (Artificial Intelligence) unterhalten.
Cette année, 260 élèves de secondaire en provenance de 53 pays se sont penché∙es sur les épreuves de physique aux Olympiades européennes, EuPhO en abrégé. Le concours a eu du 21 au 26 juillet sous forme virtuelle.
Axions are elementary particles with extremely low mass. So far they exist only in the brains of theoretical physicists, nobody has observed them. Really? Measurement results at detector XENON1T in Italy make one sit up and take notice.
Teams of researchers from EPFL and University of Zurich are members of the LHCb collaboraiton and have made major contributions to the construction and operation of the detector
Claudia Merlassino was born in Genoa, studied physics in Milan and completed her doctorate at the University of Bern in October 2019, since then she has been doing research at Oxford University in the UK. At the age of 28, the Italian experimental physicist has already made a remarkable journey as a researcher. She is now receiving the PhD prize in Swiss particle physics - among other things for her findings in the context of the most massive of all elementary particles.
La finale des olympiades de physique aurait dû avoir lieu en mars. En raison de la pandémie du coronavirus, les examens ont été reportés au 6 juin et organisés en ligne. Les 24 finalistes ont testé leurs connaissances depuis la maison. Le suspense était à son comble lors de l’annonce des résultats le 27 juin.
19 Juin 2020, 12:00
When analyzing data from the XENON1T detector for dark matter, a signal excess was observed. The UZH researchers do not yet know for sure where this unexpected signal comes from. They say the origins could be relatively banal, but they could also indicate the existence of new particles or hitherto unknown properties of neutrinos.
To recognise the International Day of Light 2020 and the 60th anniversary of the laser, the Swiss Physical Society (SPS) publishes a detailed report by René Salathé (EPFL) to record the development and milestones in laser science from 1960 to 1980 in Switzerland.
This media update is part of a series related to the 2020 Large Hadron Collider Physics conference, which took place from 25 to 30 May 2020. Originally planned to take place in Paris, the conference was held entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ALICE, CMS and LHCb collaborations present new measurements that show how particles containing charm quarks can serve as “messengers” of hadrons and the quark–gluon plasma, carrying information about these forms of matter. This media update is part of a series related to the 2020 Large Hadron Collider Physics (LHCP2020) conference, taking place 25–30 May 2020.
Positron emission tomography (PET) helps medical doctors to detect cancer and many other diseases. A team of researchers led by ETH Professor Günther Dissertori is working on a new generation of PET scanners that could in future be of great use in pharmacological research and in the treatment of Alzheimer's patients. The technical innovation is based, among other things, on fundamental research at CERN.
FCC - these three letters stand for the vision of a new ring accelerator that could be built at the European particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva. With this long-term goal in mind, Swiss physicists founded the CHART research initiative five years ago. Now the demonstrator of a powerful magnet is available. If the tests are successful, a very first step towards decisive progress in infrastructure for basic research, but also in applications such as, e.g., innovative instrumentation for medical therapies will be achieved.
Une équipe scientifique internationale a réussi à détecter une manifestation de la brisure de la symétrie fondamentale de la nature qui a permis à la matière de dominer l’Univers au détriment de l’antimatière.
Scientists at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) have spent around ten years building the Spectrometer / Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX). Since 10 February, the research instrument is travelling to the Sun. It will provide accurate measurements of the solar atmosphere and the solar wind and will also cover the polar regions of the Sun that cannot be observed from Earth.
With its European particle physics laboratory CERN, Geneva attracts many researchers to Switzerland. This was also the case with François Drielsma (28). In a doctoral thesis supervised by Prof. Alain Blondel (University of Geneva), the Belgian-born scientist investigated a completely new way to build a particle accelerator.
Particle physicists from all over Europe are currently discussing the future of European particle physics, when the current ring accelerator LHC will be decommissioned around 2035. Next May, the decision could be taken launch technical and financial feasibility studies for the construction of a new, even more powerful particle accelerator.
This week’s drafting session marks final discussions for the update of the European strategy for particle physics
Elementary particle physics and the large-scale CERN research facility have repeatedly inspired artists to engage with modern scientific research. The latest example is the movie 'Les Particules' by French-Swiss filmmaker Blaise Harrison (39). In this art piece scientific research serves as an escape and dream world for an adolescent.
Lesya Shchutska (pronounced: Schutska) is 33 years old and already Professor of Elementary Particle Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). "At the moment I can't imagine doing anything other than physics," says the researcher, who deals with particles that so far only exist in the minds of theoretical physicists.
At the occasion of the Swiss Geoscience meeting in Fribourg in November 2019, the ACP Award for Atmospheric Research was presented to Daniele Nerini for his PhD thesis “Ensemble precipitation nowcasting: limits to prediction, localization and seamless blending”.
Sous la devise "encore 24 expériences jusqu'à Noël", 24 expériences de physique divertissantes sont proposées à faire soi-même, qui sont fournies en version allemande et anglaise.
In deep underground tunnels of former mines near the Japanese Alps, teams of scientists with Swiss participation are researching various types of elementary particles. Over the next few years, powerful research instruments will be put into operation with which scientists want to discover the nature of neutrinos. The hoped-for results could lead to solving of deep puzzles in our understanding of the universe.
Hardly any elementary particle occurs more frequently in the universe than the elusive neutrino. The investigation of the almost massless tiny particle is a focus of current elementary particle physics. Perhaps the most important contribution to the understanding of neutrino has been made over twenty years by the Japanese Super-Kamiokande detector, in which several Swiss research groups are involved. A visit to the Japanese mountains.
Pickel, Schaufel und Spatel gehören zwar noch immer zur archäologischen Feldausrüstung, immer öfter kommen aber bereits im Feld oder spätestens bei der Auswertung im Büro High-Tech Geräte zum Einsatz. Tragbare Röntgenfluoreszenz-Analysatoren sind ein Beispiel solcher Geräte, die zur grossen Freude archäologischer Konservatoren zerstörungsfreie Analysen ermöglichen.
Graben oder nicht graben? Das ist oft die Frage! Die Entscheidung müssen Archäologen aber nicht dem Zufall überlassen. Geophysikalische Prospektionen und die Fernerkundung erlauben sehr weit gehende Einsichten in den Untergrund, bevor die erste Schaufel Erdreich bewegt wird. Die dadurch gewonnenen digitalen Daten bilden die ideale Grundlage, um einen antiken Fundort durch gezieltes Anlegen von Grabungsschnitten möglichst detailliert zu erkunden.
Wollen Archäologen ohne zu graben den Untergrund erforschen, dann greifen sie zu geophysikalischen Methoden. Bei Luftbildauswertungen und elektrischen Widerstandsmessungen in Studen kam Erstaunliches zu Tage – aber auch die Erkenntnis, dass ein Grossteil des römischen Vicus undokumentiert dem Kiesabbau zum Opfer gefallen ist.
Neutrinos are ubiquitous yet elusive particles that could shed light on the early evolution of the universe. As one of the world’s major laboratories for neutrino physics, Fermilab partners with leading organizations around the globe to get a firmer grasp on these subtle particles.
Les deux chercheurs de l'Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève partagent cette extraordinaire distinction avec James Peebles, professeur émérite à l'Université de Princeton aux Etats-Unis. Le Prix Nobel récompense la découverte en 1995 par les scientifiques suisses de la première planète située en-dehors de notre système solaire.
Le Prix Nobel de physique a été décerné conjointement aux astrophysiciens genevois Michel Mayor et Didier Queloz ainsi qu'au Canado-Américain James Peebles. Ils sont distingués pour leur contribution à la compréhension de l'évolution de l'univers.
In 2025, the 'Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment' (DUNE) will be launched in the north of the USA, with which physicists want to learn more about neutrino - a still mysterious elementary particle. An important component of the DUNE experiment is currently being prepared by scientists from the University of Bern.
Die ANG geht unter die Podcaster
Michał Rawlik, scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) is awarded the CHIPP Prize 2019. The 29-year-old researcher receives the award for his doctoral thesis on the electric dipole moment of the neutron. The experiment he co-developed could one day help answer the question of why there is much more matter in the universe than antimatter.
Les communications de la Société Suisse de Physique (SSP) paraissent trois fois par année et sont destinées avant tout aux membres de la société. Elles contiennent des informations sur la société, des annonces d'événements, mais aussi des séries d'articles sur divers thèmes: "Progrès récents en physique", "Anecdotes de la physique", "Physique et société", "Histoire de la physique" et "Evénements clé en physique".
The PhD Prize of the Swiss Society of Crystallography (SGK/SSCr) is awarded to Dr Luzia Germann for her thesis "Investigation of Solid State Reactions of Molecular Functional Materials by in situ X-ray Powder Diffraction". The award ceremony will take place during the society's Annual Meeting, Sept. 4, 2019 at EPFL Valais in Sion.
La semaine dernière, cinq jeunes en provenance de la Suisse ont participé aux Olympiades internationales de physique, qui se déroulaient du 7 au 15 juillet 2019 à Tel Aviv. Ils ont été récompensés par deux médailles de bronze et une mention honorifique.
The 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting dedicated to physics just ended. We had a great week of vivid discussions between 39 Nobel Laureates and 580 young scientists from 89 countries most of them Physicists but not only.
Cinq lycéens suisses se sont glissés dans la peau d'un physicien. Après un examen expérimental et théorique, trois d'entre eux ont reçu une mention honorable.
Un labyrinthe de miroirs, un pot brillant, d’innombrables câbles et écrans numériques. Si vous rendez visite à Matteo Fadel sur son lieu de travail à l’Université de Bâle, il vous emmène tout d’abord au laboratoire dans lequel il étudie des phénomènes quantiques étranges. Quelque part au milieu de l’appareillage, plusieurs centaines d’atomes sont piégés et amenés dans un état qui cause encore beaucoup de maux de tête aux physiciens d’aujourd’hui.
Le contrôle de la quantité de phosphate dans les cellules, les processus impliqués dans les catalyseurs, l'utilisation des sols à Madagascar, ou encore un paradoxe de la physique quantique – Autant de sujets couronnés par Le Prix Schläfli 2019, décerné par l'Académie des sciences naturelles (SCNAT) aux quatre découvertes les plus importantes de jeunes chercheurs des universités suisses. Les lauréat-e-s sont Murielle Delley (chimie), Matteo Fadel (physique), Rebekka Wild (biologie) et Julie Zähringer (géosciences). Et une première : six des candidats au Prix Schläfli Physique ont été sélectionnés pour participer à la Conférence du Prix Nobel de Lindau.
Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants can take a long time to decay. For plutonium-239 the half-life - that is the time until half of the atoms of a sample have decayed - is no less than 24,000 years. But this is nothing compared to the half-life of the noble gas xenon-124, as an international research team with collaborators from the University of Zurich has now shown.
From 2026, the performance of the large-scale experiments at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, in Geneva will be significantly increased. The preliminary work for the upgrade of the large particle accelerator LHC and the associated detectors is currently in full swing. An important contribution is made by the University of Bern, where doctoral student Armin Fehr (26) and his colleagues are working on a component for the ATLAS detector. This component will enable the read-out of the greatly increased data rates from 2026 onwards.
Das Projekt Event Horizon Telescope (EHT, dt. Ereignishorizont Teleskop) hat zum Ziel, die ersten Fotos der Umgebung der schwarzen Löcher M87* im Virgo-Cluster und Sgr A* (Sgr = Sagittarius = Schütze) im Zentrum der Milchstrasse zu machen.
CERN in Geneva is the leading particle physics laboratory worldwide. Large particle accelerators based on the most innovative technologies are used there for fundamental research. One year ago, the innovation park “PARK INNOVAARE” in Villigen (AG) launched, together with CERN, the BIC of CERN program: it supports start-ups and high-tech micro-companies using CERN technologies for commercial applications. These days the second call for proposals has started.
La Confédération a chargé les Académies suisses des sciences d'établir des feuilles de route pour les infrastructures de recherche dans les différents domaines scientifiques. Ces feuilles de route servent à la Confédération à identifier les grands équipements dans lesquels elle doit investir dans les années 2025 à 2028. La nouvelle méthode d'établissement de cette base de décision donne davantage la parole aux scientifiques, explique Jürg Pfister, Secrétaire général de la SCNAT, qui est responsable du projet au sein des Académies.
The LHCb collaboration at CERN has seen, for the first time, the matter–antimatter asymmetry known as CP violation in a so-called D0 meson. LHCb is one of the four large experiments performed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with Swiss participation of Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and University of Zurich.
Fünf junge Schweizer haben sich für die Internationale Physik-Olympiade vom 7. bis 15. Juli in Tel Aviv, Israel qualifiziert. Sie gewannen Gold an der 23. Schweizer Physik-Olympiade 2019.
Gravity accompanies us in our everyday lives—from early morning, when we get out of bed, to late evening, when we drop tiredly onto the mattress. Although no other force of nature shapes our lives as much as gravity, we still know little about it. Many scientists around the world are working to uncover the secrets of gravity. One of them is researching in Canton Aargau: the 32-year-old particle physicist Anna Soter.
The CHIPP Prize is to reward annually the best PhD student in Experimental or Theoretical Particle Physics. In the evaluation, emphasis will be given to the quality of PhD scientific work and to its relevance within the student's research group, as well as to novel ideas brought up by the candidate.
Le tableau périodique des éléments chimiques est l'une des réalisations les plus importantes de la science, qui rend compte non seulement de l'essence de la chimie, mais aussi de la physique et de la biologie. 1869 est considérée comme l'année de formulation du concept moderne du système périodique par Dmitri Mendeleev (et d'autres). 2019 marque le 150e anniversaire de cette formulation et a donc été proclamée "Année internationale du tableau périodique des éléments chimiques (IYPT2019)" par l'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies et l'UNESCO.
À une époque où beaucoup de pays d'Europe se refermaient sur eux-mêmes, la Suisse ouvrait une station de recherche à vocation internationale au Jungfraujoch. Plusieurs prix Nobel y ont travaillé. En 2019, la station se voit honorée de deux récompenses qui la consacrent Grand site historique des sciences. La Société européenne de physique lui rend honneur dans le domaine des sciences physiques et l'Académie suisse des sciences naturelles dans celui de la chimie.
Professor Laura Baudis (U. Zurich) was elected Chair of the SAC by representatives of the member countries of the group which coordinates research in Astroparticle Physics in Europe. Professor Teresa Montaruli (U. Geneva) was elected Chair of the General Assembly.
Etalement urbain, déclin de la diversité des paysages et de la biodiversité, paysages de montagne marqués par le changement climatique: afin de mieux protéger les paysages suisses avec l’implication de la sphère politique et de la société, de les utiliser et de les façonner de manière plus durable, l'Académie des sciences naturelles (SCNAT) regroupe dès 2019 différentes activités dans une entité baptisée Forum Paysage, Alpes et Parcs. Le plus grand réseau de connaissances sur les paysages naturels et culturels en Suisse verra ainsi le jour. Felix Kienast, de l'Institut fédéral de recherches sur la forêt, la neige et le paysage WSL, en est le président. De même, de nouveaux présidents viennent d’être nommés à la tête d'autres unités de la SCNAT.
In spring 2020 the European particle physics community will decide on a new European Strategy highlighting the strategic long-term goals in this important field of fundamental research. In December 2018 Swiss scientists – organized by the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics / CHIPP – have formulated their input to the new European Strategy. Günther Dissertori – professor at ETH Zurich, member of the CHIPP Executive Board and incoming Scientific Delegate of Switzerland in the CERN Council – explains the main points of the Swiss strategic input.
Prof. Ernst Meyer (Uni. Basel) is the new President of the Platform MAP starting in 2019. He succeeds to Prof. Friedrich-Karl Thielemann (Uni. Basel), who served for six years (2013-2018) as President and stays in the Presidium for another three-year term.
Die Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern enthalten wissenschaftliche Beiträge oder die Referate ausgewählter Vortragszyklen, die Jahresberichte der NGB, die Sitzungsberichte der Bernischen Botanischen Gesellschaft und weitere Informationen.
In the first workshop in April, the status of the field was reviewed and discussed. The CHIPP input for the discussion of the ESPP update was then agreed during the second workshop held in September. This document describes the CHIPP position on the ESPP update focused on the scientific issues.
APPEC strongly supports and encourages the prospects of an even stronger synergy between Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology with Particle Physics. Areas of synergy between the above domains are identified: dark matter and dark energy; multi-messenger astrophysics, with the recently achieved discoveries of gravitational waves and the extraordinary opportunities also offered by gamma-ray and neutrino observatories for the exploration of powerful accelerators of the universe; the current neutrino precision program in relationship with cosmology, that promise either an unprecedented confirmation of the two standard models of Particle Physics and Cosmology, or a gate to new physics beyond both. These synergies include R&D on photosensors, cryogenic and vacuum techniques, optimisation of large scale infrastructures (civil infrastructure, vacuum, cryogenics) and of their governance and long-term operation, computing strategies for analysis and handling of large volumes of data, and policies leading to open science. Their development also requires grounding fundamental science within society, including, outreach and education. In view of the above synergies the present document introduces and briefly discusses four recommendations related to the role of PP in i) the dark matter searches; ii) the multi-messenger astronomy,in particular the 3G GW experiments (ET); iii) the neutrino physics; iv) the creation of a European Center for AstroParticle Theory (EuCAPT).
Input to the European Strategy process edited by K. Kirch∗, L. Rivkin, C. Ru ̈egg, M. Seidel with contributions from A. Amato, A. Antognini, M. Calvi, R. Eichler, W. Hajdas, M. Hildebrandt, M. Kenzelmann, B. Kotlinski, A. Knecht, B. Lauss, S. Ritt, S. Sanfilippo, P. Schmidt-Wellenburg, A. Signer
Neutrinos are electrically neutral and very light elementary particles, which interact only weakly with other matter and are therefore difficult to observe. From 2025, a new neutrino experiment in the US aims contributing to a better understanding of the neutrinos. At the University of Bern physicists are currently working on the prototype for a detector to be used in the upcoming experiment.
IPPOG, the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, is a collaboration comprising 27 signing member-organizations (countries, laboratories, experiments) whose goal is to maximize the impact of education and outreach efforts related to particle physics.
PiA offers 24 entertaining physics experiments to do yourself again this year. Due to the great interest from abroad, physics will be available in English during Advent, just like last year.
Laetitia Laub was born and raised near Lausanne. She studied mathematics and physics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Since August 2017, the 24-year-old junior scientist is writing her doctoral thesis in theoretical physics at the University of Bern. In her thesis she deals with the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the muon and the reaction of this particle in the magnetic field. "Many people are currently working on this theoretical problem with the aim of further reducing the calculation error of the dipol moment. This is also because a better experimental value for the dipole moment will be probably found at Fermilab in the US and J-Parc experiment in Japan soon, " says Laetitia Laub.
Le Prix Nobel de physique 2018 est revenu pour moitié à Arthur Ashkin (USA), ainsi qu'à Gérard Mourou (France) et Donna Strickland (Canada). Ils sont récompensés pour leurs travaux sur les lasers, à la base d'applications dans l'industrie et la médecine. Arthur Ashkin a mis au point la pince optique qui permet de manipuler des organismes extrêmement petits comme les cellules, les particules et les virus. Gérard Mourou et Donna Strickland ont inventé la technique d'amplification des lasers, appelé, qui génère des impulsions ultracourtes et de très haute puissance.
At the end of August, climate change and the future energy supply of Switzerland were among the topics of several keynote speeches at the Annual Meeting of the Swiss Physical Society (SPS) and the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP) in Lausanne. Maurice Bourquin, former professor of physics at University of Geneva, gave a keynote lecture about the ongoing transformation of the Swiss energy system. Professor Bourquin was also Rector of the University of Geneva (1999 - 2003) and President of the CERN Council (2001 - 2003). The 77 year-old scientist’s speech was titled: “Thorium-based systems – A new direction for nuclear waste elimination and energy production.” In the interview that follows, Professor Bourquin explains why he still believes in nuclear power.
In order for physicists at CERN to carry out their experiments for the understanding of matter, the large particle accelerator LHC must be operated with the utmost precision. Ensuring this precision both now and in the future was the overriding goal of a doctoral thesis that Claudia Tambasco recently completed at the EPFL in Lausanne. For this work, the young researcher was today (28.08.2018) awarded the prize of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP) at a ceremony in Lausanne.
Geneva, 28 August. Six years after its discovery, the Higgs boson has at last been observed decaying to fundamental particles known as bottom quarks. The finding, presented today at CERN by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is consistent with the hypothesis that the all-pervading quantum field behind the Higgs boson also gives mass to the bottom quark. Both teams have submitted their results for publication today.