The 16th JINR-ISU Baikal Summer School on Physics of Elementary Particles and Astrophysics will take place from 8 to 15 July 2016, in a picturesque village Bol’shie Koty (Big Cats) on the shores of Lake Baikal.
Undergraduate and graduate students as well as early-career PhDs (postdocs) are invited to attend the School. The working language of the school is English. The School offers a unique experience of full scientific immersion “Siberian style”:
A week of lectures given by world experts on variery of topics (Standard Model and beyond, neutrino physics, LHC results, cosmology, gravity, astrophysics)
Plenty of time for questions and informal discussions with lecturers
Intensive study sessions on topics of the lectures held in small groups
An opportunity to give a presentation or present a poster of own work
Friendly atmosphere, new contacts and friends
The stunning views of the Lake Baikal and Siberian Taiga.
The XXVII International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2016) will be held in London from Monday 4 July to Saturday 9 July 2016.
RICAP-16 will be the sixth edition of the RICAP Conference. The Conference, entirely dedicated to the study of high-energy cosmic rays, has been traditionally organized by the INFN sections and Physics Departments of the three public Universities of Roma ( University “La Sapienza”, University Roma “Tor Vergata” and University “Roma Tre”). The 2016 edition will be held in Villa Tuscolana, Frascati, Roma.
Scientific Topics
The aim of the Conference will be to present and discuss some of the most relevant theoretical and experimental results in the field of high-energy cosmic rays (gamma, neutrinos, charged cosmic rays). Special attention will be paid to the multi-messenger search for high-energy cosmic rays sources, including gravitational wave searches. A special session will be dedicated to Dark Matter search. The Conference will give the opportunity to collect experimental results from presently operating experiments. Experiments in progress and future projects will be discussed, debating on the different features and on sensitivities. Particular relevance will be given to the discussion of the open questions in high energy Astroparticle Physics.
The 12th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs will be held at Jeju Island, South Korea, from June 20th to 24th, 2016.
This workshop continues a rich and successful series, reviewing recent theoretical advances, laboratory experiments, as well as astrophysical and cosmological results in the fields of axions, WIMPs and WISPs.
The scientific programme covers the following topics:
– The physics case for WIMPs, Axions, WISPs
– Direct and indirect searches for Dark Matter and Dark Energy
– Direct and indirect searches for Axions and other WISPs
– Signals from astrophysical sources
– Review of collider experiments
– New theoretical developments
Requests for oral or poster contributions to the workshop can be made from now on via the conference webpage.
The important dates dealing with the registration and abstract submission are:
4 April, 2016: deadline for abstract submission
20 April, 2016: announcement of decisions on submitted contributions
25 April, 2016: deadline for early registration
20 May, 2016: deadline for late registration
Yannis K. Semertzidis (Chair, CAPP/IBS & KAIST)
Vassilis Anastassopoulos (University of Patras)
Laura Baudis (University of Zurich)
Joerg Jaeckel (University of Heidelberg)
Axel Lindner (DESY)
Andreas Ringwald (DESY)
Marc Schumann (AEC Bern)
Konstantin Zioutas (University of Patras & CERN)
Local organizing committee:
Yannis K. Semertzidis (Chair)
Dominika Konikowska (Contact person)
Woohyun Chung
Yeaji Jang
Sookyung Jung
Young-Im Kim
ByeongRok Ko
Soohyung Lee
Yujung Lee
Ka Young Oh
Eleni Petrakou
SungWoo Youn
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo collaboration have identified a second gravitational wave event in data from the Advanced LIGO detectors. The event was detected early on the morning of 26 December 2015, following on from the first direct detection of a gravitational wave in September.
The December gravitational waves were produced during the final moments of the merger of two black holes around 1.4 billion years ago. The black holes, 14 and 8 times the mass of the sun, merged to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole that is 21 times the mass of the sun.
“It is very significant that these black holes were much less massive than those observed in the first detection,” said Gabriela Gonzalez, LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) spokesperson and professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University. “Because of their lighter masses compared to the first detection, they spent more time—about one second—in the sensitive band of the detectors. It is a promising start to mapping the populations of black holes in our universe.”
During the merger, a quantity of energy roughly equivalent to the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves. The detected signal comes from the last 27 orbits of the black holes before their merger. Based on the arrival time of the signals—with the Livingston detector measuring the waves 1.1 milliseconds before the Hanford detector—the position of the source in the sky can be roughly determined.
“In the near future, Virgo, the European interferometer, will join a growing network of gravitational wave detectors, which work together with ground-based telescopes that follow-up on the signals,” said Fulvio Ricci, the Virgo Collaboration spokesperson. “The three interferometers together will permit a far better localization in the sky of the signals.”
The detection of another gravitational wave events demonstrates that the era of gravitational wave astronomy has begun. Advanced LIGO’s next data-taking run will begin in the autumn, with further improvements in detector sensitivity. The Virgo detector is expected to start its observations during the second half of the new observing run.
The governing body of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory gGmbH (CTAO gGmbH) has selected Bologna as the host site of the CTA Headquarters. The CTA Council further selected Berlin – Zeuthen for the Science Data Management Centre (SDMC) from five site candidates.
The Council, composed of shareholders from nine countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) in consultation with associate members (Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden), announced the decision in Munich following the consideration of all of the proposals.
“We are grateful for all of the proposals put forward by the applicants. While each of the candidate sites were suitable options, the Council is confident that Bologna and Zeuthen will be well-equipped to support CTA’s long-term operations,” said Ulrich Straumann, Managing Director of the CTAO gGmbH.
An international conference on imaging techniques in subatomic physics, astrophysics, medicine, biology and industry. The conference is organised by KTH Royal Institute of Technology and sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences KVA through its Nobel Institute for Physics.
ESA’s LISA Pathfinder mission has demonstrated the technology needed to build a space-based gravitational wave observatory.
Results from only two months of science operations show that the two cubes at the heart of the spacecraft are falling freely through space under the influence of gravity alone, unperturbed by other external forces, to a precision more than five times better than originally required.
In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, the LISA Pathfinder team show that the test masses are almost motionless with respect to each other, with a relative acceleration lower than ten millionths of a billionth of Earth’s gravity.
The demonstration of the mission’s key technologies opens the door to the development of a large space observatory capable of detecting gravitational waves emanating from a wide range of exotic objects in the Universe.
In the top central part of the graph, the wedge-shaped area indicates the original requirements of LISA Pathfinder. Below it, the more stringent requirements for a future spaceborne observatory of gravitational waves are also indicated.
SXS, the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project
More than 1000 scientists and engineers involved in the detection of gravitational waves have been awarded a special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award of $3 million will be shared between LIGO founders Ronald WP Drever, Kip S Thorne, and Rainer Weiss, and 1005 others in the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration as well as seven additional scientists recognised for their contributions to the success of LIGO.
Edward Witten, the chair of the Selection Committee said: “This amazing achievement lets us observe for the first time some of the remarkable workings of Einstein’s theory. Theoretical ideas about black holes which were close to being science fiction when I was a student are now reality.”
Yuri Milner described the group’s achievement as “a perfect science story.”
The prizes can be shared by any number of scientists. All of the authors of the paper announcing the direct detection of the GW150914 event are included. The seven scientists in addition are Luc Blanchet, CNRS; Thibault Damour, IHES; Lawrence Kidder, Cornell University; Frans Pretorius, Princeton University; Mark Scheel, Caltech; Saul A. Teukolsky, Cornell University; Rochus E. Vogt, Caltech.
APPEC chair Frank Linde said: “The first direct detection of gravitational waves was extremely exciting, and has sparked more and more interest in the field. I am very pleased that this international group of pioneers has been honoured with a Breakthrough Prize, and it is a good reminder of the cooperation and collaboration needed to make great strides in science. And: an excellent example for the Nobel committee to follow…”
The Special Breakthrough Prize can be awarded by the selection committee at any time “in recognition of an extraordinary scientific achievement”, in addition to the annual prizes in fundamental physics, mathematics, and life sciences. Nominations for the annual awards are open until the end of May, and the awards will be presented in the autumn.
Previous winners of the special prize in fundamental physics include seven leaders of the Large Hadron Collider teams, while last year’s annual award in fundamental physics went to five experiments working on neutrino oscillation. The prizes are funded by a grant from the Milner Global Foundation. Read the full press release here.
Location: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), Dublin
Date: 12/04/2016 – 14/04/2016, all day
The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), with the support of an interdisciplinary grant from the Irish Research Council (WEXD – When Experts Disagree), will hold a specialist workshop from Tuesday 12th to Thursday 14th April 2016 examining some disputed areas of high-energy astrophysics. A novel and interesting aspect of the meeting is that it will also be attended by some experimental philosophers interested in expert disagreement.
