The muon neutrino is a lepton, an elementary subatomic particle which has the symbol
ν
μ and no electric charge. Together with the muon it forms the second generation of leptons, hence the name muon neutrino. It was discovered in 1962 by Leon Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger. The discovery was rewarded with the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Underground Area 2 (UA2) experiment was a high-energy physics experiment at the Proton-Antiproton Collider — a modification of the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) — at CERN. The experiment ran from 1981 until 1990, and its main objective was to discover the W and Z bosons. UA2, together with the UA1 experiment, succeeded in discovering these particles in 1983, leading to the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer. The UA2 experiment also observed the first evidence for jet production in hadron collisions in 1981, and was involved in the searches of the top quark and of supersymmetric particles. Pierre Darriulat was the spokesperson of UA2 from 1981 to 1986, followed by Luigi Di Lella from 1986 to 1990.
In physics, a time projection chamber (TPC) is a type of particle detector that uses a combination of electric fields and magnetic fields together with a sensitive volume of gas or liquid to perform a three-dimensional reconstruction of a particle trajectory or interaction.
The ArDM Experiment is a particle physics experiment based on a liquid argon detector, aiming at measuring signals from WIMPs, which probably constitute the Dark Matter in the universe. Elastic scattering of WIMPs from argon nuclei is measurable by observing free electrons from ionization and photons from scintillation, which are produced by the recoiling nucleus interacting with neighbouring atoms. The ionization and scintillation signals can be measured with dedicated readout techniques, which constitute a fundamental part of the detector.
The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy.
Astroparticle physics, also called particle astrophysics, is a branch of particle physics that studies elementary particles of astronomical origin and their relation to astrophysics and cosmology. It is a relatively new field of research emerging at the intersection of particle physics, astronomy, astrophysics, detector physics, relativity, solid state physics, and cosmology. Partly motivated by the discovery of neutrino oscillation, the field has undergone rapid development, both theoretically and experimentally, since the early 2000s.
DEAP is a direct dark matter search experiment which uses liquid argon as a target material. DEAP utilizes background discrimination based on the characteristic scintillation pulse-shape of argon. A first-generation detector (DEAP-1) with a 7 kg target mass was operated at Queen's University to test the performance of pulse-shape discrimination at low recoil energies in liquid argon. DEAP-1 was then moved to SNOLAB, 2 km below Earth's surface, in October 2007 and collected data into 2011.
Fabrizio de Miranda was an Italian bridges and structural engineer and university professor.
The Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) was an instrument used in a scientific experiment for detecting tau neutrinos from muon neutrino oscillations. The experiment is a collaboration between CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Gran Sasso, Italy and uses the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) neutrino beam.
Borexino is a particle physics experiment to study low energy (sub-MeV) solar neutrinos. The detector is the world's most radio-pure liquid scintillator calorimeter. It is placed within a stainless steel sphere which holds the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) used as signal detectors and is shielded by a water tank to protect it against external radiation and tag incoming cosmic muons that manage to penetrate the overburden of the mountain above.
ADA was one of the first Italian particle accelerator and the first-ever electron–positron particle collider measuring around 1.3 metres in diameter which was designed to store beams of 250 MeV.
Guido Bastianini, Italian papyrologist and palaeographer.
The DarkSide collaboration is an international affiliation of universities and labs seeking to directly detect dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The collaboration is planning, building and operating a series of liquid argon time projection chambers (TPCs) that are employed at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi, Italy. The detectors are filled with liquid argon from underground sources in order to exclude the radioactive isotope 39
Ar, which makes up one in every 1015 (quadrillion) atoms in atmospheric argon. The Darkside-10 (DS-10) prototype was tested in 2012, and the Darkside-50 (DS-50) experiment has been operating since 2013. Darkside-20k (DS-20k) with 20 tonnes of liquid argon is being planned as of 2019.
Antonio Ereditato is an Italian physicist, Visiting Professor at the University of Yale, USA and Emeritus professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he has been Director of the Laboratory for High Energy Physics from 2006 to 2020. He carried out research activities in the field of experimental neutrino physics, of weak interactions and strong interactions with experiments conducted at CERN, in Japan, at Fermilab in United States and at the LNGS in Italy. Ereditato has accomplished several R&D studies on particle detectors: wire chambers, calorimeters, time projection chambers, nuclear emulsions, detectors for medical applications.
ICARUS is a physics experiment aimed at studying neutrinos. It was located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). After completion of its operations there, it was refurbished at CERN for re-use in the same neutrino beam from Fermilab as the MiniBooNE, MicroBooNE and SBND experiments. The ICARUS detector was then broken down for transport and reassembled at Fermilab. In February 2020, scientists at Fermilab began cooling down ICARUS and filling it with 760 tons of liquid argon. Scientists hope to take the first measurements with the refurbished ICARUS later in 2020.
Muon g−2 is a particle physics experiment at Fermilab to measure the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of a muon to a precision of 0.14 ppm, which will be a sensitive test of the Standard Model. It might also provide evidence of the existence of entirely new particles.
Cătălina Oana Curceanu is a Romanian physicist and lead researcher at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. She researches low energy quantum chromodynamics.
Ettore Fiorini is an Italian experimental particle physicist. He is professor emeritus of nuclear and subnuclear physics at the University of Milano-Bicocca.
The Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro is one of the four major research centers of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN). The primary focus of research at this laboratory is in the fields of nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics, where five accelerators are currently used. It is one of the most important facilities in Italy for research in these fields. The main future project of the laboratory is the Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES), in which various radionuclides will be produced for research and medicinal purposes.
Luisa Cifarelli FInstP is a Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Bologna. She is the Director of the La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento.
