New results from the CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) experiment, hosted at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), have been published in Science (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp6474).

CUORE’s primary goal is to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0𝜈𝛽𝛽) in ¹³⁰Te. The experiment began operation in 2017 and has continuously collected data since 2019 with a duty cycle of more than 90%. Thanks to the unprecedented operational stability of the cryogenic infrastructure, an exposure of over 2 tons/year of tellurium oxide (¹³⁰TeO₂) was accumulated between 2017 and mid-2023.

With the largest dataset of its kind, the CUORE collaboration has set a new limit on the frequency with which neutrinoless double beta decay could occur in a tellurium atom. On average, 3.5 x 10²⁵ years, or no more than once every 35 million billion billion years, the most stringent limit ever reached for the 0𝜈𝛽𝛽 half-life of tellurium.

The CUORE detector consists of a compact array of 988 ¹³⁰TeO2 crystal calorimeters, each 5 × 5 × 5 cm³ in size, with an active mass of 742 kg of ¹³⁰TeO2, equivalent to approximately 206 kg of ¹³⁰Te. The detector is housed inside a dilution cryostat specially designed for this experiment. This is a multistage dilution refrigerator, without cryogenic fluids, which cools the detector to approximately 10 mK and keeps it stable at this temperature. The overall volume of the detector is approximately one cubic meter, which is why the CUORE detector has been called “the coldest cubic meter in the universe.”

The use of these sophisticated cryogenic detectors allows CUORE to achieve such sensitivity that it can even record the pulsating waves crashing on the coast 50 kilometers away from the Gran Sasso laboratories. In particular, thanks to research conceived and developed by the CUORE group from the INFN Bologna Division, the origin of these distant disturbances, which occur at frequencies below one hertz, has been traced back to marine microseismic activity in the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas. Technicians and technologists from the Bologna Division also provided significant assistance during the delicate cryostat assembly phase and will provide valuable support in the upcoming dismantling phase of the experiment.

CUORE will continue to acquire data until it reaches an analyzed exposure of 3 tons per year of TeO2 (approximately 1 ton per year of ¹³⁰Te). This is expected to happen around mid-2026.

CUORE is an international collaboration involving over 20 institutions. The experiment, operating at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories, is led by the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, California).

Link to the CUORE pages: https://cuoreexperiment.org/

Link to the CUORE pages at LNGS: https://www.lngs.infn.it/it/cuore

Link a “The Coldest Cubic Meter in the Known Universe”: https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.1560

On September 16, the PolarquEEEst 2025 – OvEEErland mission was launched. This new initiative by researchers from the EEE Collaboration was dedicated to studying cosmic ray flux at different latitudes using one of the POLA-R detectors, developed as part of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project. Researchers from CREF, INFN, and the University of Oslo took part in the mission.
Following previous expeditions—in which the POLA-R detectors were deployed on the innovative eco-friendly vessel Nanuq in 2018 to circumnavigate the Svalbard islands, were permanently installed in the Norwegian archipelago in 2019, and accompanied the training ship Amerigo Vespucci in 2022—this year the mission took a new direction: an overland journey from Bologna to Tromsø, in the heart of Arctic Norway, by car!
The route crossed six countries—Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway—covering a total of approximately 8,200 km round trip. It enabled the study of cosmic rays at latitudes from 44.5°N to 70°N, complementing the measurements taken during the previous PolarquEEEst missions.
Along the way, scientific stops and outreach events were held at German and Norwegian educational institutions: the Gymnasium Villa Elisabeth in Wildau (with the support of Carolin Gnebner, head of the DESY-Zeuthen group for the International Cosmic Day), the Department of Physics at the University of Oslo, and the Thora Storm Videregående Skole in Trondheim. The three events were a great success and saw significant participation from Italian students, who connected remotely to present the work done on the detectors in their schools.
This mission used a POLA-R type detector made with plastic scintillators and silicon photomultipliers, along with a trigger/readout/management system,  all developed with the support of INFN Bologna Division’s services.
The support from the administration in preparing the trip was essential for this mission’s success.
The mission concluded on October 8 with the return to Bologna.
You can follow the journey step-by-step on the EEE social media channels: updates, curiosities, and the story of this exciting scientific adventure.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialEEEcref.it

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eee__experiment/

Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Y6D6g6H8yKcTn9HEdGLNX35H4jjfCmBP&ll=44.67034917639257%2C11.125642837237821&z=8

From September 1st to 6th, high school students will prepare for the International Physics Olympiada

The initiative, organized by the Fisica e Scuola Association (APS), in collaboration with the Giuseppe Occhialini Foundation, will take place from September 1 to 6, 2025, at the Student’s Hostel Estense in Ferrara.
The lessons will be held at the Liceo Ariosto with a modular approach: two daily sessions of four hours each, led by about fifteen high school teachers who, in pairs, will cover all the main physics topics with the students.
The training for the Physics Olympiad will be enriched by a visit to the Ferrara Technopole, the technological and scientific hub of the University of Ferrara, where the students will discover the applications of physics in sectors such as automotive, medicine, energy technologies, and intelligent industrial systems.

This year, the science and culture for the territory section will feature two evening lectures open to the public at the Liceo Ariosto, led by researchers of the Ferrara University and INFN of the Ferrara section. The program includes:

• “DUNE: A large-scale experiment hunting for neutrinos” – speaker Marco Guarise, il September 2nd at 9:00 PM 
• “Gravitational Wave Detection”– speakerGuido Zavattini, il Sepetmber 4th at 9:00 PM 
  frontier scientific projects that promise new discoveries on neutrinos, dark matter, and black holes.

The highlight of the week will be the show “INTRECCI. Between Art and Science” by Federico Benuzzi, scheduled for Friday, September 5th at 9:30 PM in the Aula Magna Drigo of the University of Ferrara (Via Paradiso, 12). The lecture-performance, free of charge but registration is required at bit.ly/intrecci-arte-scienza, will explore the connections between art and science as parts of a single human culture.

A network of excellence
The Summer School has received the patronage of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Municipality of Ferrara, and the Carlo Bo University of Urbino, and is made possible thanks to the support of numerous institutions: the INFN Ferrara and Bologna sections, the Universities of Ferrara, Bologna, Modena and Reggio Emilia, and Camerino, the Ferrara Technopole, the Liceo Ariosto, the Association for the Teaching of Physics (AIF), and Zanichelli Editore.

The 15th Einstein Telescope Symposium will take place at the CNR in Bologna from 26 to 30 May.

On the occasion of this event, the ET group of the INFN Bologna Section, together with colleagues from the other organisations organising the Symposium (DIFA of UniBo, and Bologna Sections of INGV and INAF ), has organised a number of free initiatives aimed at citizens, as part of the ET-Italy project with the support of the European Gravitational Observatory.

1. Exibition “Einstein Telescope: A Look into the Deep Universe”

From 26 May to 13 June | Palazzo d’Accursio (Manica Lunga), Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The exhibition starts from Einstein’s general relativity to the revolutionary discovery of gravitational waves, and then focuses on the Einstein Telescope (ET), a cutting-edge research infrastructure included in the ESFRI Roadmap. The exhibition explores ET’s scientific prospects and the technological and industrial challenges of the project, with a focus on the Italian candidature of the Sos Enattos site in Sardinia, where preparatory activities are already underway.

2. Show “The Subterranean Universe – Einstein Telescope in Sardinia”

Thursday 29 May | 21:00 | Cinema Modernissimo, Piazza Re Enzo 3, Bologna
Free admission. Reservations: https://l.infn.it/et-modernissimo

A conference-show that interweaves science, art and territory to recount one of the most fascinating challenges of contemporary physics: the construction of the Einstein Telescope, the future European underground observatory for gravitational waves, whose ideal site could rise in the heart of Sardinia, at the former mine of Sos Enattos, in Lula. Under the ironic and passionate guidance of Patrizio Roversi, the audience will be taken on a journey between the depths of the Earth and those of space-time. With the contribution of scientist Marica Branchesi (GSSI), one of the best-known faces in the astrophysics of gravitational waves, and physicist Massimo Carpinelli (director of EGO), one of the promoters of the project in Sardinia, we will explore the meaning of a research that has the ambition of observing the universe beyond light, listening to its most remote vibrations.

But it will not only be science. To narrate the link between research and landscape, between knowledge and identity, there will also be the notes of the violin by Anna Tifu, an internationally renowned Sardinian musician, and the live illustrations by Angelo Adamo, an artist and scientist from INAF/IASF Palermo, who will give visual form to the imagery of a universe pulsating beneath our feet.

3. “Big Bang Machine” interactive van

Thursday 29 May from 12:00 to 21:00; Friday 30 May from 10:00 to 19:00 | Piazza Galvani, Bologna 

The ‘Big Bang Machine’, a mobile laboratory in the heart of Bologna, offers an immersive experience that takes the public on a virtual journey through space and time to the origins of the universe. Aboard a spacecraft, visitors will explore extreme phenomena such as black holes, stellar mergers and the first moments of the cosmos. The experience aims to show the link between cosmic signals and the study of the Earth, making fundamental physics topics accessible in an engaging and interactive way.

 

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations during a ceremony held in Los Angeles on 5 April. From left to right: Andreas Hoecker (former ATLAS spokesperson), Patricia McBride (former CMS spokesperson), Marco van Leeuwen (ALICE spokesperson) and Vincenzo Vagnoni (LHCb spokesperson and Research Director of INFN Bologna).

On April the 5th, the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN were honoured with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. The prize is awarded to the four collaborations, which unite thousands of researchers from more than 70 countries, and concerns the papers authored based on LHC Run-2 data up to July 2024. It was received by the spokespersons who led the collaborations during that time. 

The prize was awarded to the collaborations for their “detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties confirming the symmetry-breaking mechanism of mass generation, the discovery of new strongly interacting particles, the study of rare processes and matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”.

“I am extremely proud to see the extraordinary accomplishments of the LHC collaborations honoured with this prestigious Prize,” said Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of CERN. “It is a beautiful recognition of the collective efforts, dedication, competence and hard work of thousands of people from all over the world who contribute daily to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.”

Following consultation with the experiments’ management teams, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation will donate the $3 million Prize to the CERN & Society Foundation. The Prize money will be used to offer grants for doctoral students from the collaborations’ member institutes to spend research time at CERN, giving them experience in working at the forefront of science and new expertise to bring back to their home countries and regions.

ATLAS and CMS are general-purpose experiments, which pursue the full programme of exploration offered by the LHC’s high-energy and high-intensity proton and ion beams. They jointly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 and continue to investigate its properties. ALICE studies quark-gluon plasma, a state of extremely hot and dense matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang, while LHCb explores minute differences between matter and antimatter, violation of fundamental symmetries and the complex spectra of composite particles (“hadrons”) made of heavy and light quarks, among other things.

By performing these extraordinarily precise and delicate tests, the LHC experiments have pushed the boundaries of knowledge of fundamental physics to unprecedented limits. They will continue to do so with the upcoming upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, the High-Luminosity LHC, which aims to ramp up the performance of the LHC, starting in 2030, in order to increase the potential for discoveries.

The Bologna section of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna (DIFA) are particularly proud of this award: by hosting members of all four collaborations, they have contributed substantially to the success of the experiments along the years, both in terms of detector construction and data analysis.

The set-up of the two laboratories funded within the KM3NeT4RR project at the Bologna Section of the INFN has been completed.  

To celebrate this important achievement, we have organised an event that will take place next Monday, 7 April in the BP-2B meeting room (formerly the Bio-medical meeting room).

The day’s programme includes ‘arrival and registration’ from 9:30 a.m., with the actual  starting at approximately 10:30 a.m.  

It will begin with a presentation of the KM3NeT4RR project, with a focus on its implementation in Bologna.    

This will be followed by a visit to the laboratories, with the inevitable ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by a buffet lunch. 

As the responsible of the project’s INFN-BO Operational Unit, and on behalf of the colleagues who have contributed to the achievement of this goal, it is my pleasure to invite you to this event to celebrate this milestone together with our group.

Tommaso Chiarusi

 

Italian Space Agency (ASI) Headquarters – 10 March, from 10:30

Event link:
https://www.asi.it/event/risultati-scientifici-della-collaborazione-limadou/

Over 3,500 high school students from all over Italy are taking part in the International Masterclasses on physics this year. Born in 2005, for 20 years the Masterclasses have taken thousands of students from all over the world on a journey to discover the infinitely small and experimental research in this field.

In Bologna, 4 events are planned to be held from 11 to 14 March organized by the INFN Section of Bologna in collaboration with the University of Bologna and the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna. During these days, more than 100 young students, simultaneously with their peers from other Italian campuses or other countries around the world, will be able to gain direct experience of how scientific research in large laboratories works, analyzing data from some experiments at CERN in Geneva, and discovering how particle physics can help medicine.

The program is:

• On Tuesday 11 March:  the analysis of the data collected by the ATLAS experiment
• On Wednesday 12 March: the analysis of the data from the LHCb experiment
• On Thursday 13 March: the analysis of the data from the National Center for Oncological Hadron therapy, CNAO
• On Friday 14 March: the analysis of the data from the ALICE experiment

For further details you can consult the dedicated website
https://www.bo.infn.it/MasterClass/

The KM3NeT-Bologna group invites you to the presentation of an exceptionally important discovery obtained thanks to the KM3NeT submarine telescope installed in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. The scientific results will soon be published in the journal Nature, rewarding the decades-long work of the experiment’s scientists and technicians.

To mark the occasion, on February 12 2025,  from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and the University of Bologna – who are taking part in the KM3NeT Collaboration – will give a public lecture in Aula A of the ‘A. Righi’ Department of Physics and Astronomy (via Irnerio 46) starting at 16:00.

The details of the discovery, the relevant contributions of the Bologna research group, and the associated scientific prospects and technological spin-offs will be illustrated. An international link with other sites of the Collaboration and with the scientific journal Nature is planned during the presentation.

Local speakers: Tommaso Chiarusi, Giulia Illuminati, Francesco Filippini (INFN), Annarita Margiotta, Maurizio Spurio (DIFA UniBo).