Events, News, Publications
Eine abendliche Exkursion mit Vortrag von Dr. Jürg Niederhauser, Eidgenössisches Institut für Metrologie METAS
Image: METAS
Dr Anne Verhamme teaches as an assistant professor of Astronomy at the University of Geneva and researches how galaxies release energy into the universe. The 42-year-old French woman is also a mother of three teenagers and lives in Annecy. That sounds like a proof that a scientific career and family are compatible today. However, Anne Verhamme had to overcome a few hurdles before she got to that point.
Image: SNF
The Swiss Physical Society (SPS) awarded honorary membership to Prof. Friedrich-Karl Thielemann at the annual general assembly and draws attention to his exceptionally broad commitment
Image: F.-K. Thielemann
Last year, Gabriel Cuomo successfully defended his PhD thesis in theoretical particle physics at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). For this academic achievement, the Sicilian-born physicist, who now lives and researches in New York, receives the Doctoral Students Award of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP). The prize will be awarded at the beginning of September in Innsbruck on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Swiss Physical Society (SPS) together with the Austrian partner organisation.
Image: G. Cuomo
To complete their research team the Research Group Snow Hydrology of the he WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF offers a two-year position starting on November 2021 as a PostDoc Snow Hydrology (80–100 %).
Image: Public Domain, flickr.comSGK/SSCr Newsletter 106
Image: SGK
Bei der Internationalen Physik-Olympiade (IPhO) vom 17. bis 24. Juli lösten Jugendliche aus über 70 Ländern anspruchsvolle Aufgaben über LED, Erdbebenwellen oder Quantenphysik. Die fünf Teilnehmer aus der Schweiz verbrachten den virtuellen Wettbewerb in Signau (BE) – und staubten eine Bronzemedaille und drei Ehrenmeldungen ab.
Ein Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Thomas Stocker, Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern
Hundreds of global researchers, including University of Zurich, are planning the most sensitive dark matter detector ever built.
The XENON/DARWIN and LUX-ZEPLIN collaborations have now joined forces to work together on the design, construction, and operation of a new, single, multi-tonne scale xenon observatory to explore dark matter. The detector will be highly sensitive to a wide range of proposed dark matter particles and their interactions with visible matter. Over the last 20+ years, experiments using liquefied xenon targets have delivered world-leading results in the global quest for direct dark matter detection. This next-generation detector aims to continue the pursuit.
Survey about the Swiss Society for Crystallography
The search for dark matter is one of the 'hot topics' in current elementary particle physics. Recently, powerful detectors have been developed that may be able to experimentally detect the components of this 'dark', invisible matter. Laura Baudis, professor of physics at the University of Zurich, has made a significant contribution to the development of this research infrastructure over the past 20 years.
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 105
The newly opened Science Exploratorium of the University of Zurich hosts temporary exhibitions in which researchers share their enthusiasm for their research topics.
The European Research Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva is currently working on making the measurement data from four large-scale experiments available to the public via internet. This form of 'open science' benefits particle physicists around the globe, but also students or high school students - for example in Switzerland.
The Trust Science pledge is a worldwide campaign to promote support for the scientific process and to acknowledge the many benefits of science for society.
At the beginning of April, the US research laboratory Fermilab published a new result for the magnetic dipole moment of the muon. The result caused a broad media response because it deviates from the theoretical predictions and thus questions the previous understanding of the laws of nature. Researchers from the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics (AEC) at the University of Bern were involved in the theoretical predictions. Prof. Martin Hoferichter, theoretical physicist at the AEC, explains the background.
In Italy, female high school graduates choose to study physics much more naturally than it has been the case in Switzerland so far. Ilaria Zardo was one of these young Italian women who first became enthusiastic about studying physics and later about academic research. Today, as a professor at the University of Basel, she and her research group study heat flows at the nanoscale level.
When people talk about CERN, they inevitably think of the large-scale experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But the European Laboratory for Particle Physics has even more to offer: A small but powerful experiment called FASER is currently being assembled at CERN, involving research teams led by Geneva physics professors Anna Sfyrla and Giuseppe Iacobucci and by Bern physics professor Akitaka Ariga. FASER proves: Even comparatively inexpensive experiments have the potential for groundbreaking scientific findings.
![Comparison between RK measurements. The measurements by the BaBar and Belle collaborations combine B+→K+ℓ+ℓ− and B0→KS0ℓ+ℓ− decays, where ℓ is a lepton. The previous LHCb measurements and the new result [4], which supersedes them, are also shown.](http://portal-cdn.scnat.ch/asset/40d25219-cf32-5d7f-a344-d4356ccc9252/Screenshot%202021-03-23%20at%2007.10.12.png?b=7f50075d-36d9-5913-bc44-fac8e7e34457&v=9bd7e834-a6a8-55b6-a09e-b7a43d64781f_100&s=ZXCr4RK3qEJY7uCaZs-9pRZZZ8OZ8EVj3Rtyhyf2-qP-evQun65d57tCLxGqXtaTEoil2Qpqb3qILXWzeagdRAk0VyPfdvD6i55sqpj1txNkByqDDgqtsu4QPc8YaVnoTVyp_QF8cXZ9TucqIpINFjwWWfLF-52KvErWu9a54Gs&t=168762a9-a047-48ef-8189-ae1810223337&sc=2 "Comparison between RK measurements. The measurements by the BaBar and Belle collaborations combine B+→K+ℓ+ℓ− and B0→KS0ℓ+ℓ− decays, where ℓ is a lepton. The previous LHCb measurements and the new result [4], which supersedes them, are also shown.")
Almost ten years ago, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) made headlines with the discovery of the Higgs particle. These days, the LHCb experiment at CERN has published results that also have the makings of a real scientific sensation: studies of the so-called beauty quark suggest that there could be a fifth, super-weak force in addition to the four known forces of nature (electromagnetism, gravitation, strong and weak interaction). However, CERN researchers still have a lot of work ahead of them to confirm this spectacular hypothesis. At the forefront: particle physicists from the University of Zurich and EPF Lausanne
Until his retirement in 2017, Martin Pohl was a physics professor at the University of Geneva and worked on particle physics research projects for almost half a century. Drawing on this wealth of experience, a book has been written in which Pohl knowledgeably traces the developmental strands of this fundamental discipline. The culmination is the 'Standard Model' of particle physics - for Pohl a scientific highlight and a burden at the same time.
This community roadmap summarizes a survey of the Swiss large-scale infrastructure requirements in the broad field of photon science for the years 2025–2028, drawing from the current situation both in Switzerland and abroad. The Swiss Society for Photon Science (SSPh) collected the scientific visions and compiled the needs of the community of photon science, which encompasses all research areas that work to generate, manipulate and detect photons or use them to investigate or control complex assemblies of matter.
This community roadmap presents the visions for future research in particle and astroparticle physics in Switzerland and formulates the needs of these fields in terms of research infrastructure in the years 2025-2028 and beyond. It was established under the auspices of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP), which issued its first roadmap already in 2004 and conducted dedicated roadmap-planning workshops in 2018 and 2020.
This community roadmap presents a broad overview of the current status of neutron science in Switzerland and derives a set of recommendations for future developments. It is the result of a community effort led by the Swiss Neutron Science Society (SNSS) with the main objectives to survey and analyse the unique contributions that neutron probes provide across scientific and technological fields and disciplines; and provisions needed to ensure continuing and sustainable success.
Swiss Particle Physics researchers are very proud to announce that UZH people worked directly on this measurement and had a leading role on this analysis, EPFL and UZH are very prominent in LHCb in both analysis and hardware.
UNESCO celebrates every year on 16 May the International Day of Light (IDL). It is a global initiative that provides an annual focal point for the continued appreciation of light and the role it plays in science, culture and art, education, and sustainable development, as well as in fields as diverse as medicine, communications, and energy.
The workshop will be virtual and will include sessions with talks and discussions. A panel discussion will conclude the workshop.
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 100
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 102
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 104 August 2020
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 103
SGK/SSCr Newsletter 101
The technical know-how that physicists use in research could soon serve in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. An international team of scientists with strong Swiss participation has developed a ventilator in record time that could help in the future against lung diseases like Corona, especially in countries with a precarious medical infrastructure.
In the laboratories of modern physics the elementary components of matter are studied. To do this, scientists sometimes build artificial atoms to help them understand the laws of matter. A research team at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Villigen/AG) uses a specifically modified helium atom to determine the exact mass and other properties of pions. Pions could help to understand more precisely where atomic nuclei get their mass from.
Presents a novel combination of essays with contributors from big research organizations, funding agencies and experts in economics
In naher Zukunft möchten wir verschiedenste Jugendprojekte im Kanton Aargau umsetzen. Geplant sind zum Beispiel naturwissenschaftliche Praktika, Exkursionen, Vorträge oder Mentorate für schriftliche Arbeiten.
This document presents the results of the survey by the Platform Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics, which successfully collected in June–July 2020 the diverse opinions of active researchers in Switzerland on the transition towards Open Research Data.
Claudia Merlassino was born in Genoa, studied physics in Milan and completed her doctorate at the University of Bern in October 2019, since then she has been doing research at Oxford University in the UK. At the age of 28, the Italian experimental physicist has already made a remarkable journey as a researcher. She is now receiving the PhD prize in Swiss particle physics - among other things for her findings in the context of the most massive of all elementary particles.
Executive summary of an analysis prepared by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) for the European Physical Society (EPS)
On June 19th CERN Council adopted the update of the "European Strategy for Particle Physics 2020". This document updates an earlier strategy paper that was adopted by the Council in 2013, just after the Higgs discovery in 2012. It identifies the medium and long-term priorities of fundamental research in particle physics and thus forms an important basis for the construction of the European research infrastructure. The implications of this strategy update for Swiss particle physics are answered by Rainer Wallny, Professor of Particle Physics at ETH Zurich and President of the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP), the umbrella organisation of Swiss particle physics.
The delta+ is a type of baryon, the family of sub-atomic particles to which the more well-known proton and neutron belong. A team of physics enthusiasts at the International School of Geneva is working intensively on these extremely unstable elementary particles. In September they will travel to Hamburg for an experiment at the renowned particle physics research institute DESY. They owe this extraordinary research trip to winning this year's “Beamline for Schools” (BL4S) competition at CERN.
In dieser Folge haben wir uns mit Professor Ruedi Füchslin von der Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, kurz ZHAW, über Künstliche Intelligenz (Artificial Intelligence) unterhalten.
Die Europäische Physik-Olympiade, kurz EuPhO, stellte dieses Jahr 260 Mittelschülerinnen und Mittelschüler aus 53 Ländern vor physikalische Rätsel. Der Wettbewerb fand vom 21. – 26. Juli virtuell statt.
Axions are elementary particles with extremely low mass. So far they exist only in the brains of theoretical physicists, nobody has observed them. Really? Measurement results at detector XENON1T in Italy make one sit up and take notice.
Teams of researchers from EPFL and University of Zurich are members of the LHCb collaboraiton and have made major contributions to the construction and operation of the detector
Claudia Merlassino was born in Genoa, studied physics in Milan and completed her doctorate at the University of Bern in October 2019, since then she has been doing research at Oxford University in the UK. At the age of 28, the Italian experimental physicist has already made a remarkable journey as a researcher. She is now receiving the PhD prize in Swiss particle physics - among other things for her findings in the context of the most massive of all elementary particles.
Das Finale der Physik-Olympiade hätte eigentlich schon im März stattfinden sollen. Wegen der Coronavirus-Pandemie wurden die Prüfungen auf den 6. Juni verschoben und online durchgeführt. Die 24 Finalistinnen und Finalisten stellten ihr Können von zuhause aus unter Beweis. Als am 27. Juni die Resultate verkündet wurden, war die Spannung gross.
19 June 2020, 12:00
When analyzing data from the XENON1T detector for dark matter, a signal excess was observed. The UZH researchers do not yet know for sure where this unexpected signal comes from. They say the origins could be relatively banal, but they could also indicate the existence of new particles or hitherto unknown properties of neutrinos.
To recognise the International Day of Light 2020 and the 60th anniversary of the laser, the Swiss Physical Society (SPS) publishes a detailed report by René Salathé (EPFL) to record the development and milestones in laser science from 1960 to 1980 in Switzerland.
This media update is part of a series related to the 2020 Large Hadron Collider Physics conference, which took place from 25 to 30 May 2020. Originally planned to take place in Paris, the conference was held entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ALICE, CMS and LHCb collaborations present new measurements that show how particles containing charm quarks can serve as “messengers” of hadrons and the quark–gluon plasma, carrying information about these forms of matter. This media update is part of a series related to the 2020 Large Hadron Collider Physics (LHCP2020) conference, taking place 25–30 May 2020.
Positron emission tomography (PET) helps medical doctors to detect cancer and many other diseases. A team of researchers led by ETH Professor Günther Dissertori is working on a new generation of PET scanners that could in future be of great use in pharmacological research and in the treatment of Alzheimer's patients. The technical innovation is based, among other things, on fundamental research at CERN.
FCC - these three letters stand for the vision of a new ring accelerator that could be built at the European particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva. With this long-term goal in mind, Swiss physicists founded the CHART research initiative five years ago. Now the demonstrator of a powerful magnet is available. If the tests are successful, a very first step towards decisive progress in infrastructure for basic research, but also in applications such as, e.g., innovative instrumentation for medical therapies will be achieved.
The T2K Collaboration has published new results showing the strongest constraint yet on the parameter that governs the breaking of the symmetry between matter and antimatter in neutrino oscillations.
Scientists at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) have spent around ten years building the Spectrometer / Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX). Since 10 February, the research instrument is travelling to the Sun. It will provide accurate measurements of the solar atmosphere and the solar wind and will also cover the polar regions of the Sun that cannot be observed from Earth.
With its European particle physics laboratory CERN, Geneva attracts many researchers to Switzerland. This was also the case with François Drielsma (28). In a doctoral thesis supervised by Prof. Alain Blondel (University of Geneva), the Belgian-born scientist investigated a completely new way to build a particle accelerator.
Particle physicists from all over Europe are currently discussing the future of European particle physics, when the current ring accelerator LHC will be decommissioned around 2035. Next May, the decision could be taken launch technical and financial feasibility studies for the construction of a new, even more powerful particle accelerator.
This week’s drafting session marks final discussions for the update of the European strategy for particle physics
Elementary particle physics and the large-scale CERN research facility have repeatedly inspired artists to engage with modern scientific research. The latest example is the movie 'Les Particules' by French-Swiss filmmaker Blaise Harrison (39). In this art piece scientific research serves as an escape and dream world for an adolescent.
Lesya Shchutska (pronounced: Schutska) is 33 years old and already Professor of Elementary Particle Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). "At the moment I can't imagine doing anything other than physics," says the researcher, who deals with particles that so far only exist in the minds of theoretical physicists.
At the occasion of the Swiss Geoscience meeting in Fribourg in November 2019, the ACP Award for Atmospheric Research was presented to Daniele Nerini for his PhD thesis “Ensemble precipitation nowcasting: limits to prediction, localization and seamless blending”.
Under the motto "still 24 experiments until Christmas" 24 entertaining physics experiments are offered to do yourself, which are provided in a German and an English version.
In deep underground tunnels of former mines near the Japanese Alps, teams of scientists with Swiss participation are researching various types of elementary particles. Over the next few years, powerful research instruments will be put into operation with which scientists want to discover the nature of neutrinos. The hoped-for results could lead to solving of deep puzzles in our understanding of the universe.
Hardly any elementary particle occurs more frequently in the universe than the elusive neutrino. The investigation of the almost massless tiny particle is a focus of current elementary particle physics. Perhaps the most important contribution to the understanding of neutrino has been made over twenty years by the Japanese Super-Kamiokande detector, in which several Swiss research groups are involved. A visit to the Japanese mountains.
Pickel, Schaufel und Spatel gehören zwar noch immer zur archäologischen Feldausrüstung, immer öfter kommen aber bereits im Feld oder spätestens bei der Auswertung im Büro High-Tech Geräte zum Einsatz. Tragbare Röntgenfluoreszenz-Analysatoren sind ein Beispiel solcher Geräte, die zur grossen Freude archäologischer Konservatoren zerstörungsfreie Analysen ermöglichen.
Graben oder nicht graben? Das ist oft die Frage! Die Entscheidung müssen Archäologen aber nicht dem Zufall überlassen. Geophysikalische Prospektionen und die Fernerkundung erlauben sehr weit gehende Einsichten in den Untergrund, bevor die erste Schaufel Erdreich bewegt wird. Die dadurch gewonnenen digitalen Daten bilden die ideale Grundlage, um einen antiken Fundort durch gezieltes Anlegen von Grabungsschnitten möglichst detailliert zu erkunden.
Wollen Archäologen ohne zu graben den Untergrund erforschen, dann greifen sie zu geophysikalischen Methoden. Bei Luftbildauswertungen und elektrischen Widerstandsmessungen in Studen kam Erstaunliches zu Tage – aber auch die Erkenntnis, dass ein Grossteil des römischen Vicus undokumentiert dem Kiesabbau zum Opfer gefallen ist.
Neutrinos are ubiquitous yet elusive particles that could shed light on the early evolution of the universe. As one of the world’s major laboratories for neutrino physics, Fermilab partners with leading organizations around the globe to get a firmer grasp on these subtle particles.
The two researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva share this extraordinary distinction with James Peebles, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University in the United States. The Nobel Prize was awarded to the Swiss scientists for the discovery in 1995 of the first planet outside our solar system.
Der Nobelpreis für Physik geht in diesem Jahr zu einer Hälfte an Michel Mayor und Didier Queloz von der Universität Genf für die Entdeckung des ersten Exoplaneten. Zur anderen Hälfte geht der Preis an James Peebles für Entdeckungen zur physikalischen Kosmologie.
In 2025, the 'Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment' (DUNE) will be launched in the north of the USA, with which physicists want to learn more about neutrino - a still mysterious elementary particle. An important component of the DUNE experiment is currently being prepared by scientists from the University of Bern.
Die ANG geht unter die Podcaster
Michał Rawlik, scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) is awarded the CHIPP Prize 2019. The 29-year-old researcher receives the award for his doctoral thesis on the electric dipole moment of the neutron. The experiment he co-developed could one day help answer the question of why there is much more matter in the universe than antimatter.
Communications of the Swiss Physical Society (SPS) are published three times a year and are intended primarily to the members of the society. They contain information about the society, event announcements, as well as series of articles on various topics.
The PhD Prize of the Swiss Society of Crystallography (SGK/SSCr) is awarded to Dr Luzia Germann for her thesis "Investigation of Solid State Reactions of Molecular Functional Materials by in situ X-ray Powder Diffraction". The award ceremony will take place during the society's Annual Meeting, Sept. 4, 2019 at EPFL Valais in Sion.
Fünf Jugendliche aus der Schweiz nahmen an der Internationalen Physik-Olympiade teil, welche vom 7. bis zum 15. Juli 2019 in Tel Aviv stattfand. Sie wurden mit zwei Bronzemedaillen und einer Ehrenmeldung ausgezeichnet.
The 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting dedicated to physics just ended. We had a great week of vivid discussions between 39 Nobel Laureates and 580 young scientists from 89 countries most of them Physicists but not only.
In die Schuhe eines Physikers schlüpften fünf Schweizer Gymnasiasten. Nach einer Experimental- und Theorieprüfung wurden drei von ihnen mit einer Honorable Mention ausgezeichnet.
A labyrinth of mirrors, a shiny pot, countless cables and digital displays. Visiting Matteo Fadel at his workplace at the University of Basel, he first takes us to the laboratory where he tracks strange quantum phenomena. Somewhere in the midst of all this apparatus, several hundred atoms are trapped and brought into a state that still causes physicists a lot of headaches today.
Controlling the amount of phosphate in cells, the processes involved in catalysts, land use in Madagascar and a paradox of quantum physics – these are the topics for which the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) has awarded the Prix Schläfli 2019 to the four most important insights gained by young researchers at Swiss universities. Murielle Delley (Chemistry), Matteo Fadel (Physics), Rebekka Wild (Biology) and Julie Zähringer (Geosciences) receive the prize for the findings arrived at in their dissertations. For the first time, six of the candidates for the Prix Schläfli in Physics were also selected to participate in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.
Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants can take a long time to decay. For plutonium-239 the half-life - that is the time until half of the atoms of a sample have decayed - is no less than 24,000 years. But this is nothing compared to the half-life of the noble gas xenon-124, as an international research team with collaborators from the University of Zurich has now shown.
From 2026, the performance of the large-scale experiments at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, in Geneva will be significantly increased. The preliminary work for the upgrade of the large particle accelerator LHC and the associated detectors is currently in full swing. An important contribution is made by the University of Bern, where doctoral student Armin Fehr (26) and his colleagues are working on a component for the ATLAS detector. This component will enable the read-out of the greatly increased data rates from 2026 onwards.
Das Projekt Event Horizon Telescope (EHT, dt. Ereignishorizont Teleskop) hat zum Ziel, die ersten Fotos der Umgebung der schwarzen Löcher M87* im Virgo-Cluster und Sgr A* (Sgr = Sagittarius = Schütze) im Zentrum der Milchstrasse zu machen.
CERN in Geneva is the leading particle physics laboratory worldwide. Large particle accelerators based on the most innovative technologies are used there for fundamental research. One year ago, the innovation park “PARK INNOVAARE” in Villigen (AG) launched, together with CERN, the BIC of CERN program: it supports start-ups and high-tech micro-companies using CERN technologies for commercial applications. These days the second call for proposals has started.
The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences have been requested by the Confederation to prepare roadmaps for research infrastructures for the various scientific fields. These roadmaps will provide a basis for decision-making on the allocation of federal funding for costly research facilities over the period 2025–2028. SCNAT is responsible for implementing this new procedure within the Swiss Academies, and Secretary General Jürg Pfister believes that it offers the scientific community an opportunity for wider involvement.
The LHCb collaboration at CERN has seen, for the first time, the matter–antimatter asymmetry known as CP violation in a so-called D0 meson. LHCb is one of the four large experiments performed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with Swiss participation of Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and University of Zurich.
Fünf junge Schweizer haben sich für die Internationale Physik-Olympiade vom 7. bis 15. Juli in Tel Aviv, Israel qualifiziert. Sie gewannen Gold an der 23. Schweizer Physik-Olympiade 2019.
Gravity accompanies us in our everyday lives—from early morning, when we get out of bed, to late evening, when we drop tiredly onto the mattress. Although no other force of nature shapes our lives as much as gravity, we still know little about it. Many scientists around the world are working to uncover the secrets of gravity. One of them is researching in Canton Aargau: the 32-year-old particle physicist Anna Soter.
The CHIPP Prize is to reward annually the best PhD student in Experimental or Theoretical Particle Physics. In the evaluation, emphasis will be given to the quality of PhD scientific work and to its relevance within the student's research group, as well as to novel ideas brought up by the candidate.
The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements is one of the most significant achievements in science, capturing the essence not only of chemistry, but also of physics and biology. 1869 is considered as the year of formulation of the modern concept of the Periodic System by Dmitri Mendeleev (and others). 2019 is the 150th anniversary of this formulation and has therefore been proclaimed the "International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019)" by the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO.
In Zeiten, in denen sich viele Länder Europas abschotteten, eröffnete die Schweiz die international ausgerichtete Forschungsstation Jungfraujoch. Mehrere Nobelpreisträger haben dort geforscht. Die Station erhält 2019 gleich zwei Auszeichnungen als bedeutende historische Stätte der Naturwissenschaften. Die Europäische Physikalische Gesellschaft honoriert die Verdienste in der Physik und die Akademie der Naturwissenschaften Schweiz jene in der Chemie.
Professor Laura Baudis (U. Zurich) was elected Chair of the SAC by representatives of the member countries of the group which coordinates research in Astroparticle Physics in Europe. Professor Teresa Montaruli (U. Geneva) was elected Chair of the General Assembly.
Sprawl, loss of landscape diversity and biodiversity, mountain landscapes marked by climate change: Starting in 2019, the Academy of Natural Sciences (SCNAT) is merging various of its activities in the new Landscape, Alps, Parks Forum. The goal is to better protect Switzerland's landscapes in collaboration with politics and society and to utilise and manage them more sustainably. This fusion will create the largest knowledge network in Switzerland on natural and cultural landscapes. Designated president is Felix Kienast of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). Furthermore, new presidents are also being appointed in other SCNAT units.
In spring 2020 the European particle physics community will decide on a new European Strategy highlighting the strategic long-term goals in this important field of fundamental research. In December 2018 Swiss scientists – organized by the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics / CHIPP – have formulated their input to the new European Strategy. Günther Dissertori – professor at ETH Zurich, member of the CHIPP Executive Board and incoming Scientific Delegate of Switzerland in the CERN Council – explains the main points of the Swiss strategic input.
Prof. Ernst Meyer (Uni. Basel) is the new President of the Platform MAP starting in 2019. He succeeds to Prof. Friedrich-Karl Thielemann (Uni. Basel), who served for six years (2013-2018) as President and stays in the Presidium for another three-year term.
Die Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern enthalten wissenschaftliche Beiträge oder die Referate ausgewählter Vortragszyklen, die Jahresberichte der NGB, die Sitzungsberichte der Bernischen Botanischen Gesellschaft und weitere Informationen.
In the first workshop in April, the status of the field was reviewed and discussed. The CHIPP input for the discussion of the ESPP update was then agreed during the second workshop held in September. This document describes the CHIPP position on the ESPP update focused on the scientific issues.
APPEC strongly supports and encourages the prospects of an even stronger synergy between Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology with Particle Physics. Areas of synergy between the above domains are identified: dark matter and dark energy; multi-messenger astrophysics, with the recently achieved discoveries of gravitational waves and the extraordinary opportunities also offered by gamma-ray and neutrino observatories for the exploration of powerful accelerators of the universe; the current neutrino precision program in relationship with cosmology, that promise either an unprecedented confirmation of the two standard models of Particle Physics and Cosmology, or a gate to new physics beyond both. These synergies include R&D on photosensors, cryogenic and vacuum techniques, optimisation of large scale infrastructures (civil infrastructure, vacuum, cryogenics) and of their governance and long-term operation, computing strategies for analysis and handling of large volumes of data, and policies leading to open science. Their development also requires grounding fundamental science within society, including, outreach and education. In view of the above synergies the present document introduces and briefly discusses four recommendations related to the role of PP in i) the dark matter searches; ii) the multi-messenger astronomy,in particular the 3G GW experiments (ET); iii) the neutrino physics; iv) the creation of a European Center for AstroParticle Theory (EuCAPT).
Input to the European Strategy process edited by K. Kirch∗, L. Rivkin, C. Ru ̈egg, M. Seidel with contributions from A. Amato, A. Antognini, M. Calvi, R. Eichler, W. Hajdas, M. Hildebrandt, M. Kenzelmann, B. Kotlinski, A. Knecht, B. Lauss, S. Ritt, S. Sanfilippo, P. Schmidt-Wellenburg, A. Signer
