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The rise of physics in China: INFN as privileged partner

Cristina Da RoldLascia un commento

Reblogged from Science on the Net

Last December, newspapers around the World have given space on their pages to the Chinese moon landing attempt, which unfortunately failed shortly afterwards, when the rover suddenly failed. Even if the attempt ended in failure, it remains a significant symbol of how much China is investing in scientific research and technological innovation. Moreover, in 2020 China has planned to build the Chinese Space Station.

But not only aerospace engineering. Also particle physics seems to be fundamental in the development program for Chinese innovation and INFN is now one of the major partners in this project. “Italy is a privileged partner for China in the field of particle physics, and Chinese researchers are asking us for years to collaborate on their projects,” says Fernando Ferroni, President of INFN. “For three years there has been an agreement between Italy and China to work together on their scientific projects and this year, on May 17th, we will meet their delegation to secure future collaborations.”

China is currently working hard to build new satellites and is taking a lot of inspiration from Italian technology like AGILE, a satellite launched in 2007 to explore some of the most violent phenomena of the universe,PAMELA, which investigates cosmic radiation, and FERMI, the NASA satellite mission dedicated to the study of gamma radiation. Furthermore, a recent collaboration between Italy and China was born to study the variability of the electromagnetic environment around the Earth and to realize a sophisticated seismic monitoring equipment to be installed on the CSES Chinese satellite that will be put in orbit in 2016.

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INFN goes overseas

Cristina Da RoldLascia un commento

Reblogged from Science on the Net

Between 5 and 6th February, INFN met the delegations from the American Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in order to establish a new scientific cooperation among Italy and USA. We talked about this meeting with Antonio Masiero, the INFN Deputy Director. “The collaboration between these two countries is excellent,” says Masiero, “and at the moment it involves four research projects, which are the topics we have discussed two weeks ago in Washington.”

The first project concerns the neutrino physics and takes place at Fermilab. It is composed by two experiments involving Italian physicists: a short baseline experiment and a long baseline experiment, which are respectively the first and the second phase of the project. The American interest in a collaboration with INFN is due to the Italian knowledge around liquid argon and its use as a target for particle detectors. “In Italy we have worked largely with liquid argon at Gran Sasso Laboratories, under the guide of Carlo Rubbia,” explains Masiero. “Our experiment is called ICARUS and it represents the best example of using liquid argon as a target for particle detectors. Thus, Americans need our know-how.”

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