
Astroparticle physics and astrophysics
Astroparticle physics and astrophysics research activities cover a wide variety of topics such as gravitational waves, the properties of neutrinos coming from the Earth, the Sun, SuperNovae or the cosmos. Our experiments look for new particles (e.g. the axion), small deviations from the theory of general relativity. They detect very high energy photons coming from the cosmos and study galaxies to investigate the so-called "dark energy".
Staff
Full Professors: Elisa Bernardini, Alessandro De Angelis, Mosè Mariotti
Associate Professors: Denis Bastieri, Marco Bazzan, Eugenio Bottacini, Caterina Braggio, Riccardo Brugnera, Gianmaria Collazuol, Michele Doro, Alberto Garfagnini, Daniele Gibin, Marco Grassi, Andrea Longhin, Giampiero Naletto, Riccardo Rando, Chiara Sirignano.
Assistant Professors: Valeria Milotti, Marco Laveder, Andrea Serafini, Magda Cicerchia, Alessandro Renzi, Elisa Prandini.
Technical staff: Enrico Borsato, Michele Giorato, Devis Pantano, Luca Silvestrin, Hanna Skliarova
PhD students
Nicole Busdon, Andrea Moscatello, Joel Beccarelli, Caterina Boscolo Meneguolo, Sofia Calgaro, Vanessa Cerrone, Igor Dorghnach, Chiara Doria, Arsenii Gavrikov, Francesca Passalacqua, Luis Matias Recabarren Vergara, Giovanna Saleh, Giuseppe Silvestri, Riccardo Triozzi, Ye Xuhong, Gabriele Zeni.
External collaborators (INFN)
Massimiliano Bonesso, Livia Conti, Jean-Pierre Zendri, Carlo Broggini, Stefano Dusini, Pupilli Fabio, Giovanni Carugno, Luca Taffarello, Stefano Anselmi, Luca Stanco, Farnese Cristian, Alberto Guglielmi, Filippo Oppizzi, Lisa Zangrando, Cornelia Arcaro, Filippo Marini, Razvan Dima, Sandro Ventura, Mauro Mezzetto, Flavio Dal Corso, Daniele Corti, Marco Bellato, Arshia Ruina, Sarah Louise Mancina, Ivana Batkovich, Davide Miceli.
Research activities
Astrophysics with very high energy photons
Astrophysics with the MAGIC and CTA telescopes
We use special telescopes (“Cherenkov” telescopes) in the Canary Islands to study high-energy gamma rays coming from the universe (MAGIC/CTA). The latter are important messengers of phenomena that occur in the most powerful celestial objects, such as black holes and supernovae, which we can use to test physical laws under extreme conditions of energy and gravity. The telescope is made up of a huge set of mirrors, capable of detecting the faint light emitted by cosmic rays as they pass through the atmosphere.
Contacts: Mosè Mariotti, Michele Doro, Alessandro De Angelis, Elisa Bernardini
Website: MAGIC/CTA
Astrophysics with the FERMI satellite
Observations are also made from space: FERMI is a satellite for the so-called "high-energy gamma ray astronomy". It has been in operation since 2008, and observes photons over a wide range of energies. It allows an unprecedented view of high-energy physical phenomena from the Solar System to the furthest reaches of the cosmos.
Contacts: Riccardo Rando, Alessandro De Angelis
Website: FERMI
Astrophysics with the SWGO experiment
To observe gamma rays at the extreme energies of the PeV, a new experiment is being designed (SWGO) which will observe the secondary particles produced by gamma rays in the atmosphere through a detector system that will extend for kilometers in a high-altitude site in Latin America.
Contacts: Michele Doro
Website: SWGO
Neutrino astrophysics
We are at the forefront of the emerging field of astrophysics with neutrino telescopes. Neutrinos are ideal messengers as they are weakly absorbed and retain memory of the direction of origin as they are not influenced by magnetic fields, meaning they allow us to point to the astrophysical sources that emitted them, even from the most remote regions of the Universe. So-called cosmic neutrinos are millions or even billions of times more energetic than those produced in the nuclear fusion reactions that power stars. In addition to revealing mysteries of the universe inaccessible with other messengers, cosmic neutrinos allow us to study the physical properties of neutrinos and fundamental interactions at much higher energies and inaccessible with large particle accelerators (link section 1.1).
For the first time after years of technological developments, the IceCube neutrino telescope has discovered the existence of very high energy neutrinos of cosmic origin. To date it has been possible to establish a direct link with specific astrophysical sources also observed with other messengers (e.g. very high energy photons), belonging to two distinct classes, namely a Blazar and a Seyfert galaxy. More recently IceCube also detected cosmic neutrinos from the Milky Way, which is therefore being observed for the first time with messengers other than photons. We are at the dawn of so-called "multi-messenger" astronomy which will allow us to understand more deeply the nature of the astrophysical phenomena capable of generating the very high energy particles that we observe, known as cosmic rays. The recent discovery presents us with a new panorama of our galaxy that already seems to have some surprises in store for us. In fact, the observed emission appears to be significantly more intense and energetic than that predicted by theoretical models of cosmic ray interaction in the galaxy.
Neutrino astrophysics with the IceCube and KM3NeT experiments
IceCube is a one-gigatonne detector in operation at the Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole, Antarctica. In the Mediterranean Sea, an experiment on the same scale as IceCube is under construction, KM3NeT, which uses seawater as a particle detection medium.
Contacts: Elisa Bernardini
Website: IceCube
Neutrino astrophysics with the Hyper-Kamiokande, DUNE and JUNO experiments
Other large neutrino experiments are under construction in Japan, the USA and China, Hyper-Kamiokande, DUNE and JUNO respectively. These experiments, in addition to probing the nature of the neutrino through the process of oscillations, are able to observe neutrinos produced by explosions of stars (supernovae), in the interior of the Sun and in the atmosphere and contribute to multi-layered astrophysics. -messenger in a complementary way to large neutrino telescopes. They will also be very important to understand to what extent we can be certain that the proton is a stable particle.
Contacts: Gianmaria Collazuol, Alberto Garfagnini, Daniele Gibin
Website: Hyper-Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande, JUNO, DUNE
Multi-messenger astrophysics
For the first time after years of attempts, the IceCube experiment in Antarctica has established the presence of very high energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin, establishing a direct link with specific sources that have also been observed with other methods (e.g. very high energy photons, gravitational waves). We are at the dawn of so-called "multi-messenger" astronomy which will allow us to understand more deeply the nature of the astrophysical phenomena capable of generating the very high energy particles that we observe.
Contacts: Elisa Bernardini, Gianmaria Collazuol, Daniele Gibin, Alberto Garfagnini.
Website: IceCube, CTA, VIRGO, ET, Hyper-Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande, DUNE, JUNO
Gravitational waves
Gravitational waves are almost imperceptible phenomena, predicted by General Relativity, that occur when compact and massive objects such as black holes and neutron stars collide. They offer us a new window to study the Universe, because they contain information that would not be accessible with standard observations based on electromagnetic radiation.
We are involved in the VIRGO experiment which detects gravitational waves of astrophysical origin in a global network with the LIGO and KAGRA detectors. The detector consists of a laser interferometer with two arms each 3 km long and perpendicular to each other, installed near Pisa in Italy. The VIRGO collaboration is made up of approximately 700 members distributed across 15 different countries. In addition to Virgo, Europe is preparing to build a new, even more powerful detector called ET (Einstein Telescope). It will be an underground interferometer with two or three arms, each approximately 10 km long. One of the possible sites where it can be built is located in western Sardinia, near the Sos Enattos mine, where the seismic noise is very low.
Contacts : Marco Bazzan, Giacomo Ciani
Website: VIRGO, LIGO, KAGRA, ET, ET Italia
Dark matter: the axion
Among the candidates of interest in the search for dark matter are axions. The QUAX experiment, underway at the Legnaro National Laboratories, is investigating whether these light but potentially very abundant particles permeate our space. To achieve this, it uses magnetic spheres placed inside a very intense electromagnetic field present inside a copper conductor excited by radio waves.
Contacts: Caterina Braggio
Website:QUAX
Dark Energy
EUCLID is an ESA mission with the aim of creating the most precise existing map of the distribution of visible and dark matter, in order to study the expansion of the Universe and the nature of dark energy. The map will be produced by measuring the redshift and weak gravitational lensing of billions of galaxies. The satellite was launched on July 1, 2023 and the first images accompanied by scientific results were released in May 2024.
Contacts: Chiara Sirignano.
Website: EUCLID