CHIPP: Swiss Institute of Particle Physics
The main highlight of 2019 was the Annual CHIPP meeting. This year it was held in Kandersteg, a village in the Bernese mountains, in the welcoming Victoria Hotel. For three days we scheduled presentations from the various experts in CHIPP to cover the three physics pillars: particle physics at the high-energy and intensity frontiers, astroparticle physics, and neutrino physics. The main goal was to cover the actual state of the field and the foreseen projects for the next 5-10 years. This material together with the Swiss Input to the European Strategy Update in Particle Physics (EPPSU) will be the base for the Swiss Roadmap drafting of next year. We had a very inspiring presentation of Jorgen D'Hondt on the EPPSU followed by an alive discussion between professors, students and representatives of the Swiss government. The formal part of the meeting hosted a session with reports of the activities of the various committees such as the European Committee for Future Accelerators, the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, the Astroparticle Physics European Consortium (APPEC) and the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC). During this meeting CHIPP held the elections to cover the different roles in the association and to select the Swiss representatives in the international organizations.
In August, CHIPP participated to the annual meeting of the Swiss Physical Society at the Zurich University helping with the organization of parallel sessions for particle and astroparticle physics were many Particle Physics students presented their work. As part of the SPS award ceremony where all winners of the various SPS prizes were honoured and the CHIPP prize for the best 2019 PhD thesis work in particle physics was awarded to Michal Rawlik, scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ). Michal receives the award for his doctoral thesis on the electric dipole moment of the neutron "for his outstanding contribution to the improvement of experimental techniques aimed at detecting the Electric Dipole Moment of the neutron, and exploiting the consequences of such measurements in setting bounds on possible Axion fields".
TheCHIPP PhD Winter School (20.01-25.01) was a very successful event organised by F. Canelli (University of Zurich) at Engelberg (CH). The school offered to the 62 young physicists participating an opportunity to learn about recent advances in elementary-particle physics from local and world-leading researchers. The school program included lectures on accelerator and non-accelerator particle physics (detectors, LHC physics, neutrinos, astrophysics, flavor physics, future facilities) from an experimental and phenomenological perspective.
At the end of October a team of PSI physicists organized the very well established triannual conference, the PSI2019 Workshop (21.10-24.10). The Workshop welcomed 198 participants that followed more than 60 talks. It focused on the physics at the low energy, high precision frontier without neglecting complementary approaches. It aimed at highlighting present activities and future developments providing an excellent opportunity to explore in situ these exciting topics. It will consist of plenary sessions, including invited introductory presentations to main topics, a poster session, social activities and the opportunity to visit PSI on-site experimental facilities. Two satellite workshops were organized as part of PSI2019, the Numu2019 and EQLIPS Workshops.
During 2019, the CHIPP Executive Board and the CHIPP Board, after the Swiss Input to the Strategy in December 2018, were very active in the preparation for the Open Symposium in Granada and for Drafting session of the European Strategy Update in the beginning of 2020. The CHIPP EB kept the FLARE Tables updated with the funding of experiments of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The ECFA Mid-term Status Report of the Swiss Confederation was held the 15 November at CERN where the CHIPP activities were presented emphasizing the effort to follow the 2016 RECFA recommendations.
The CHIPP outreachactivities continued supporting the thematic portal hosted on the SCNAT website, the multi-lingual particlephysics.ch. Thanks to the SCNAT support, we could continue to keep this a lively page with 11 interviews given by B. Vogel, a professional journalist, and several other news articles and press releases in 2019.
An outstanding outreach event Scientifica 2019 (Science fiction science facts) attracted more than 30'000 visitors during 3 days at the University of Zurich and ETHZ between August 30-September 2, a stand was devoted to Antimatter & Dark Matter.
CHIPP continues to cooperate with CERN in its outreach program, about 30 visits to CERN organized by Swiss Professors took place, not only for university students in physics and other disciplines, but also for children, high-school pupils, alumni, members of societies, the media, and the public at large, more than 75'000 people had the possibility to visit the experiments and CERN. This year was really exceptional for CERN, the CERN Open Day (14-15 September) called for the collaboration of many physicists and students from Swiss Institutes for guiding, logistic and organisation of stands. Several postdoc students participate in the event in Ask the Expert role.
CHIPP would like to highlight the very successful channel of communication set up from the University of Zurich: Flavour at Zurich. In particular a new short film was realised: How Particle Physics Works: Episode II - The New Analysis.
In 2019 CHIPP continued to work on its networking and educational goals and organized directly or through its members several meetings, schools and workshops. In chronological order:
Research in particle and astroparticle physics usually involves large infrastructures, which are the result of regional, national and worldwide collaborations. In order to cover the important intellectual and technological challenges, the amounts of human and financial resources required can no longer provided by a single country. The table below shows a snapshot of the current international experimental collaborations involving CHIPP Board members.
Furthermore, smaller cooperation projects exist; many of them occur spontaneously between groups working in the same field or requiring the same type of infrastructure or in a coordinated way by CHIPP.
Experiment (Swiss Institutes) CHIPP Board members [Institutes worldwide]
ATLAS (Bern, Geneva) Beck, Ereditato, Golling, Iacobucci, Mermod, Nessi, Sfyrla, Weber, Wu [218]
CMS (ETHZ, PSI, Zurich) Canelli, Dissertori, Grab, Kotlinski, Kilminster, Wallny [198]
LHCb (EPFL, Zurich) Bay, Nakada, Schneider, Serra, Shchutska [81]
LHC Tier-2 (ETHZ, CSCS) Grab [> 200]
HL-LHC (EPFL, PSI) Rivkin [55]
CLIC (ETHZ, PSI) Rivkin [70]
FCC (Bern, EPFL, ETHZ, Geneva, PSI) Blondel, Rivkin, Dissertori, Laine [134]
Na64 (ETHZ) Rubbia [8]
AMS (Geneva) Wu [63]
ArDM (ETHZ) Rubbia [7]
CTA (ETHZ, Geneva, Zurich) Biland, Montaruli, Canelli [210]
DAMIC (Zurich) Kilminster [10]
DARWIN (Bern, Zurich) Baudis [24]
IceCube (Geneva) Montaruli [50]
MAGIC+FACT (ETHZ) Biland [24-4]
XENON (Bern, Zurich) Baudis [27]
CREMA (ETHZ, PSI) Hildebrandt, Kirch [9]
GBAR (ETHZ) Rubbia [18]
MEG II (PSI) Hildebrandt, Ritt [15]
Mu3e (ETHZ, Geneva, PSI, Zurich) Blondel, Dissertori, Grab, Hildebrandt, Kotlinski, Ritt, Wallny [8]
nEDM/n2EDM (ETHZ, PSI, Bern) Kirch, Lauss, Piegsa [15]
PANDA (Basel) Krusche [64]
In parallel to these experimental collaborations and projects, Swiss theorists are involved in numerousinternational collaborations. The prominent ones, in which Swiss theory institutes are key players is
- The LHC Higgs cross-section working group (LHCHXSWG) created in 2010 to produce agreements on cross sections, branching ratios and pseudo-observables relevant to the Higgs boson: M. Spira (PSI) was involved in the LHC Higgs cross-section working group responsible for the HDecay Manual.
At the University of Bern the work on the review of lattice results continues. It is related to pion, kaon, D- and B-meson physics with the aim of making them easily accessible to the particle physics community.
Prof. O. Schneider (EPFL) is convener of a sub-group of the Heavy Flavour Averaging Group (HFLAV). HFLAV is responsible for calculating world averages of measurements of beauty-hadron, charm-hadron and tau-lepton properties from current and past experiments and provides a comprehensive resource for the field in terms of web pages and full documentation of results.
One particular example of scientific collaboration and help at the service of the new arrivals in the LHCb experiment has been provided by the EPFL team that has built the LHCb starterkit project where the lessons from the dedicated Workshops and online tutorials are stored.
Several CHIPP members are acting as official delegates to international organizations in 2019:
One of the main objectives for CHIPP is to attract the young public to Physics and Astroparticle Physics. To achieve this goal more than 50 educational events like information days for BSc and MSc students, for pupils finishing high school and for high-school classes were organized, throughout Switzerland, involving more than 4000 young students.
More than 200 Swiss high-school pupils (at the Universitiesof Bern, Geneva, Zurich and the ETHZ) were invited to participate in the International Masterclasses Hands on Particle Physics, where over 13'000 Gymnasium level studentsin about 215 institutes over 52 countries can actually work with real data from the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The IceCube Masterclass was organised at the University of Geneva in March 2019 with about 60 participants from high schools.
Each institute has its own program towards young students and often organizes special events. For this year, one should mention in particular the following activities:
At the University of Zurich several events have been organized for high school students as the Science Info Day, which takes place annually on a Saturday afternoon in March at Irchel Campus. High school students, their parents, and teachers learn about the degree programs offered by the Faculty of Science. In September, the study information days, organised by UZH and ETH, provided an overview of the broad study program in Zurich. About 200 high-school students attended the lecture on the presentation for the physics major at UZH. Katharina Müller organised a series of 14 talks that were followed by 280 gymnasium students. An open day for children was organised for more than 30 children. Laura Baudis presented a series of 7 public lectures on Particle Physics to which more than 500 people attended.
ETHZ organized a series of eight special event days for 100 gymnasium high-school students in October and November, called ETH-unterwegs. The students were invited to participate in some experiments and lectures. On the website are the programs for different schools. Some special days for high-school classes were organized for visiting the Physics Department at ETHZ, in particular some ad-hoc days (Maturanden-tag) for students in their last year of high school. Activities for teachers are organized under the umbrella of the Didaktische Ausbildung. Several public lectures on Particle Physics were organized, one in the occasion of the development of the 200 CHF Banknote Günther Dissertori gave a special colloquium at PSI, another organized by Christoph Grab about the Discovery of the Higgs Boson. ETHZ organised several visits to CERN, Günther Dissertori accompanied a group of VIPs/Donatoren, invited by ETH Foundation and representants from the Landesmuseums Zürich. Rainer Wallny organized a visit to CERN for the Kader des Bundes (L'Association des cadres de la Confédération) and two groups in the frame of Studienstiftungen.
The University of Bern organized the Physik am Freitag, which is a series of five talks to high-school students. One of these talks contains CHIPP specific topics: Florian Piegsa gave a talk on the measurement of the neutron EDM. Two "fresher days" were organized for cantonal gymnasia and for extra-cantonal gymnasia students with a total of 150 pupils guided through the physics department of the University of Bern. Three school classes visiting the LHEP with about 70 pupils total. HP Beck organized a teachers training at CERN where talks, lectures, and visiting facilities at CERN for 15 teachers were organised. The experimental particle physics department participated to the Nationaler Zukunftstag. An extraordinary successful event was organized by HP Beck in collaboration with the Espace balloon in Château-d'Oex: Pioneers of Cosmic Rays.
The EPFL as every year organizes a big event for the beginning of the academic year, many professors and young students participatedas staff for the 2019 EPFL Open days (14-15.9.2019): Ana Barbara Rodrigues Cavalcante, Aurelio Bay, Fred Blanc, Guido Haefeli, Lesya Shchutska, Lino Ferreira Lopes, Matthieu Marinangeli, Maria Elena Stramaglia, Marie Bachmayer, Michel de Cian, Olivier Schneider, Pietro Marino, Sara Celani, Serhii Cholak, Surapat Ek-In, Veronica Kirsebom. Tara Nanut, an EPFL post-doc, was invited to speak at a Congress of Slovenian Physicists (4-5.7.2019), with open free access for physics students. The programme included a meet session with high school students who participated at the Physics Olympics, a LPHE lab visits was organised duringthe « Journée des gymnasiens, Physique EPFL ». Tara Nanut met also students from high schools and universities from Slovenia who visit CERN in a Q&A session talk with a scientist who works at CERN.A visit of Brazilian high-school students at CERN was organised with a round table discussion moderated by Ana Barbara Rodrigues Cavalcante. Violaine Bellée talked and guided 38 high-school students during a school trip to CERN. EPFL organised many visits to CERN during 2019, in particular we underline thevisit for EPFL theorists, the visit at the CMS experiment for EPFL master students (15 participants), the visit at the LHCb experiment and at neutrino platform for EPFL bachelor students (90 participants) and the visit at CERN for Swissnex members (40 participants).
Particle physicists at PSI are routinely guiding visitors (~1000 per year) through the facilities and a science exhibition in the frame of the PSI-Forum. School classes are also coming with their teachers to visit the PSI school laboratory iLab. PSI was also involved in the very successful Nationaler Zukunftstag where pupils from the Swiss schools come to explore new professional horizons. A special effort is put in discovering jobs that are usually performed by the opposite gender. At PSI there are regularly internships for interested secondary and gymnasium students, they attend for 2 weeks into particle physics, including our electronics development.
In Geneva, an information open day was held at the University for around 8000 pupils in the last year of high-school. During the three days Stage boussole several visits of the physics department and of the teaching classes were organized. A very successful series of events were organized by several researchers in the frame of the Physiscope where 180 physics shows were organized for many thousands of children.
Basel University organized a series of several special events high-school students and children during the full year 2018 and organized talks for the general public: Saturday Morning Physics.
CHIPP website contains news, documents, minutes of all meetings, as well as thelink to the complete membership database. The continuous dialogue between the institutes, which is enshrined inthe CHIPP Statutes and By-Laws, aims at having at hand in a timely and transparent manner the information about current and planned research activities. As in previous years, CHIPP took an active role in the biannual meetings of SCNAT Round Table International Organisations and Research Infrastructures. The scope of this information forum isthe exchange between the research fields involving with large international infrastructures. It accounts for the participationof Swiss groups in international research facilities and also comprises representatives of the SERI, SNSF, and Swiss universities.
Gender issue & society
Several physicists from the EPFL participated to event designed to raise public awareness of gender issues in the scientific environment:
The SCNAT offered a firm place with increased visibility among the other fields of science for both the CHIPP website and the more general Physics outreach website (particlephysics.ch). The site was kept lively throughout 2019 with the addition of 11 interviews and other news articles. As approved by the CHIPP Board, the articles are authored by B. Vogel, a science journalist collaborating with CHIPP since many years. Dr. H. P. Beck (the University of Bern) was responsible for their scientific content and Angela Benelli inserted them on the SCNAT portal in Italian, in German and in English. CHIPP is grateful to SCNAT for supporting this activity as an important dialogue with the society.
During 2019 the CHIPP Twitter account @CHIPP_news has continuously spread physics news to increase the public awareness about science and publicized available jobs in academia and outside for physicists.
At the EPFL, G. Pietrzykis in charge of the LHCb Experiment Twitter account: @lhcbexperiment and the LHCbExperiment Instagram Account with around 3500 and 13000 followers respectively. The University of Geneva has set the Particle Physics Twitter @DPNC_Unige. The Facebook site Verflixtes Higgs continued to be fed by Dr. H. P. Beck.
With A. Benelli as the Swiss member in the European Particle Physics Communication Network (EPPCN), CHIPP continues its link between the CERN press office and the Swiss media, as well as with the communication offices of the institutes related to CHIPP. The contact has been established and a measure of the media coverage of particle physics in Switzerland is provided on-line.
CHIPP Members gave outreach talks and interviews on particle physics for high-school students, societies and the general public, we would like to mention some of them:
A series of interviews and conferences were organised by the University of Geneva on the AMS experiment:
At the University of Zurich science museum started the preparation of a scale model of the CMS experiment by Prof. B. Kilminster.
The EPFL presented the LHCb detector and SciFi tracker project with prototypes of fibre modules, as well as cosmic ray tracker demo at "Salon des technologies et de l'innovation de Lausanne" (STIL), Swiss Tech Convention Centre. The development and construction of a cloud chamber for outreach activities; the cloud chambers was shown at the 2019 EPFL Open Days and several other occasions.
A temporary exposition was organised with the collaboration of HP Beck (University Bern and Fribourg) at the Espace Baloon to connect the history of the discovery of cosmic rays, with the balloon flights of Gockel, Hess and Kolhörster, to discoveries made with cosmics rays on high altitude research stations as the Jungfraujoch, and leading to modern particle physics.