In January 2020 Phase 1 of the KM3NeT-France construction was successfully completed. About one year after the deployment of the first detector unit, the ORCA detector now comprises 6 detection units, each equipped with 18 sensor modules. A module houses 31 light sensors (photo-multiplier tubes) to record the faint Cherenkov light generated by charged particles in the sea water.
Two new detection units were installed the 24-26 January, 2.5 km below the sea surface at the KM3NeT/ORCA site located 40 km offshore from Toulon, France. Immediately after connection to the seafloor network the data taking started and downgoing cosmic ray muons came pouring in. Real time analysis of the new data also identified the first sample of candidate upgoing atmospheric neutrino events detected by ORCA6.
— CANCELLED/POSTPONED, please check the website of the event for further information —
The 9th International Conference on Acoustic and Radio EeV Neutrino Detection Activities will be hosted at Monasterio San Martin Pinario, Santiago de Compostela on May 26 – 29, 2020. ARENA 2020 will be the 9th International Conference in a series of events bringing together experts in the use of acoustic and radio techniques for the detection of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos.
The new amazing discoveries reported from high-energy neutrino, gamma-ray and gravitational wave detectors have started the exciting era of multi-messenger astronomy, opening a new window to the most extreme universe.
ARENA 2020 is the major bi-annual event for scientists to pioneer, develop and consolidate techniques for ultra-high-energy particle detection, paving the way to the future.
The workshop covers the following topics, comprising theory, simulation, and existing and future experiments:
Ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic-rays and neutrinos, theory of production.
Radio-detection of UHE neutrinos and cosmic rays.
Acoustic detection of UHE neutrinos and cosmic rays.
Experimental techniques of acoustic and radio detection.
Radio emission from particle showers in dense media/air (theory and simulation)
Related detection technologies (microwave, radar, ultrafast magnetic sensing…)
Interdisciplinary relations: radio and acoustic techniques used in other fields of science.
Artist’s impression of the binary neutron star merger observed by LIGO Livingston on April 25, 2019. Image credit: National Science Foundation/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet.
On April 25, 2019 a gravitational wave signal was observed by the gravitational-wave network that includes LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the European Virgo detector. The signal, labelled GW190425, is the first event recorded and published during the third observation run O3. The source is most likely a binary neutron star merger. This would be only the second time this type of event has ever been observed in gravitational waves. However, it shows some important peculiarities: The total mass is larger than that of any known binary star system with neutrons in our galaxy. In addition, no electromagnetic counterpart was observed by the telescopes that gathered the alert sent by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration as it was the case for the first detected neutron star merger in August 2017. On January 6, 2020, the results were presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society and are submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters. See the full press release here.
The 3rd World Summit meeting on Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe will take place from 9 – 13 March 2020 in Guadeloupe Islands. The main goal is to discuss progress and future directions related to outstanding issues, both in Cosmology and in Particle Physics. The successes and shortcomings of the Standard Cosmological model as well as the Standard Particle Physics model will be reviewed through the last astrophysical observations and accelerator experiment results.
— CANCELLED/POSTPONED, please check the website of the event for further information —
The 12th Cosmic Ray International Seminar (CRIS 2020) “The endless multiple voices fugue of the Universe” will be held in Vietri sul Mare (Amalfi Coast – Italy), 8th – 12th June 2020. The meeting will focus fundamental topics in astroparticle physics with specific emphasis on the new-born multimessenger astronomy studies. The meeting is being organized by the Catania and Napoli Divisions of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), by the Department of Physics “E. Pancini” of the University of Napoli Federico II and by the Department of Physics and Astronomy “E. Majorana” of the University of Catania.
CRIS 2020, following the experience of previous editions, aims to present overviews of existing data and reports from the present and future experiments. Talks will cover both theoretical/phenomenological and experimental/observational aspects, in order to give an exhaustive overview of this complex field. The discussion about the present status and future plans requires to involve theorists and experimentalists working on various messengers. Thus, the progress in astroparticle physics achieved through space and ground-based detectors is expected to play a major role in the scientific program of CRIS 2020.
The 20th JINR-ISU Baikal Summer School on Physics of Elementary Particles and Astrophysics, will take place from July 14 to 21, 2020, in the picturesque village Bol’shie Koty (Big Cats) on the shore of Lake Baikal. Master and PhD students as well as early-career postdocs are invited to attend the School. The School offers:
a week of lectures given by invited experts in experimental and theoretical HEP and astroparticle physics,
plenty of time for questions and informal discussions with lecturers,
intensive study sessions in small groups,
an opportunity to present a talk or poster of own work,
friendly atmosphere, new contacts and friends,
and finally the stunning views of the lake Baikal and Siberian Taiga.
— CANCELLED/POSTPONED, please check the website of the event for further information —
The 21st International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2020) will be hosted by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at the site of the GRAPES-3 experiment in Ooty, India during June 4-8, 2020.
ISVHECRI is a biennial conference series supported by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). Its primary objective is to provide a forum for the discussion of very high energy interaction for the interpretation of cosmic ray data based on the information available from both the accelerator and cosmic ray experiments. This unique series brings together cosmic ray physicists and scientists involved with the high energy accelerators and colliding beam facilities.
The European Consortium for Astroparticle Theory (EuCAPT, https://www.eucapt.org) invites all theoretical astroparticle physicists and cosmologists (PhD students, postdocs, and staff) who are affiliated to a research institution in a European country, to participate in the 1st EuCAPT census by following this link:
This will allow to include you and your institution in the EuCAPT network and mailing list, and to inform you about the exciting programme of scientific meetings, collaborative projects, joint proposals, and outreach activities.
Please help to reach all interested scientists, by spreading this information to your colleagues and group members. You are kindly ask to complete the census questionnaire by January 31, 2020.
The EAS S5 symposium on gravitational-wave astrophysics will take place during the virtual European Astronomical Society (EAS) annual meeting on the 2nd and 3rd of July 2020 and focus on the question of “What have we learned from the observed population of gravitational wave sources?”.
In this symposium, it will be discussed what have we learned so far from the observed population of gravitational-wave sources and what are the implications regarding the stellar progenitors of gravitational-wave sources, kilonovae and more generally electromagnetic transients that accompany gravitational-wave events, nucleosynthesis, general relativity and nuclear physics.
— CANCELLED/POSTPONED, please check the website of the event for further information —
The DarkMachines workshop: “Advanced workshop on Accelerating the Search for Dark Matter with Machine Learning” will take place from 27 April to 1 May 2020 at CERN. This workshop is the third edition of a series of yearly meetings of the Dark Machines community (http://darkmachines.org/), a research collective of physicists and data scientists. The aim of the workshop is to answer cutting edge questions about dark matter with the most advanced techniques that data science provides us with. The researchers coming to this workshop will bring together expertise in particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology, statistics and information science (machine learning) and plenty of time will be devoted to discussions and brainstorming.
The 20th JINR-ISU Baikal Summer School on Physics of Elementary Particles and Astrophysics, will take place from July 14 to 21, 2020, in the picturesque village Bol’shie Koty (Big Cats) on the shore of Lake Baikal. Master and PhD students as well as early-career postdocs are invited to attend the School. The School offers:
The European Consortium for Astroparticle Theory (EuCAPT, 
