Founded in 2000 by INFN and CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the EGO Consortium, the European Gravitational Observatory, is now among the leading players on the international gravitational wave research scene thanks to the successes of the Virgo interferometer. EGO, in fact, is the site, just outside Pisa, of one of the three interferometers in the world that have observed to date the tiny vibrations of spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein in General Relativity and whose Nobel Prize-winning discoveries in 2017 led to the birth of gravitational and multimessenger astronomy, two completely new ways of studying the universe. EGO's mission is to ensure the operation, maintenance and upgrading of the Virgo interferometer, and to promote gravitational wave research in Europe. Over the years, the EGO consortium has built strong ties with the local area, thanks in part to its commitment to spreading scientific culture, particularly by welcoming the thousands of students who visit Virgo each year. Virgo will soon resume operations after major upgrading works. But looking even further ahead, the international gravitational wave community has launched a major new challenge: the construction in Europe of a third-generation gravitational wave detector, ET Einstein Telescope. After more than two decades of history, EGO will thus face decisive challenges in the coming years for the future of European and global gravitational physics, challenges on which the term of office of the centre's director, Massimo Carpinelli, professor at the University of Milan Bicocca and INFN researcher, who took office on 1 January 2023, succeeding Stavros Katsanevas, who died prematurely in November last year, will focus. ...
You have just taken over as director of EGO, succeeding Stavros Katsanevas, who had led it since 2018 and who left us prematurely shortly before the end of his term of office.
The enthusiasm with which Stavros Katsanevas approached his research activity and his entire life, which he knew was, in his last years, undermined by the illness that unfortunately took him away too soon, was admirable.Luca Pattavina, an INFN researcher at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS), has won a Consolidator Grant from the ERC European Research Council worth 2.7 million euros for the RES-NOVA project: a revolutionary observatory for studying astrophysical neutrino sources made using lead of Roman origin from ingots recovered from a ship that sank off the coast of Sardinia two thousand years ago.
The prize is awarded for the development of powerful theoretical computational methods for collision processes at large particle accelerators. These methods have been essential for comparing theoretical predictions with experimental results obtained at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
A technical-scientific committee to support the Italian candidacy to host the future ET Einstein Telescope project, the large next-generation European research infrastructure for the study of gravitational waves, has been formally established by decree of the Minister of Universities and Research, Anna Maria Bernini.
The ETIC Industry Day took place on 15 and 16 February at EGO, the European Gravitational Observatory, that hosts the Virgo interferometer. ETIC Industry Day was a two-day meeting aimed at the Italian business world to discuss opportunities for collaboration in research and technological development for the Einstein Telescope (ET).
On 11 February, INFN joined the celebrations for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, established in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly to promote full and equal participation of women and girls in science, education, training, employment, and decision-making.
The 19th International Masterclasses on particle, astroparticle and medical physics, the international initiative sponsored by IPPOG (International Particle Physics Outreach Group), got underway on 10 February, taking thousands of students from around the world on a journey of discovery into the infinitely small.
On January 20th, the civil-engineering work for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), has been completed. The new equipment for the HL-LHC has required new, large, civil-engineering structures on the sites of the ATLAS experiment in Meyrin, Switzerland (LHC Point 1) and the CMS experiment in Cessy, France (LHC Point 5). On each site, the underground constructions consist of a vertical shaft around 80 m deep and 10 m in diameter; an underground service cavern (16 m in diameter and 46 m long) that will notably house cryogenics, cooling and ventilation equipment; a 300-metre-long gallery for accelerator equipment and infrastructures, including power converters, protection systems, electrical distribution boxes, beam instrumentation and accelerator controls; and four galleries measuring around 50 metres in length, connecting the new structures to the LHC accelerator tunnel. ...
Once again, this year INFN is joining “I Venerdì dell'Universo” (Fridays of the Universe) in Ferrara: a series of scientific seminars where researchers give a glimpse of their research. During the first event, which featured INFN President Antonio Zoccoli as guest speaker, the prizes in memory of Prof. Raffaele Tripiccione, who passed away recently, were awarded to the best master's theses in Physics discussed at the University of Ferrara to remember Tripiccione’s enlightened commitment to teaching and research. ...
Images cover
Cover image: The new HL-LHC underground galleries at Point 1. Hertzog, Samuel Joseph: CERN ©CERN
INFN - COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
comunicazione@presid.infn.it
+39 06 6868162
Coordination:
Antonella Varaschin
Project and contents:
Cecilia Collà Ruvolo, Eleonora Cossi, Matteo Massicci, Anna Greco, Francesca Mazzotta, Francesca Scianitti, Antonella Varaschin
Design and Mailing Coordinator:
Francesca Cuicchio
Translation
ALLtrad
ICT service:
Servizio Infrastrutture e Servizi Informatici Nazionali INFN