IN2P3 in 2012: A year for harvesting and looking ahead
The coming year is expected to be a rich and exciting one, and researchers in the 24 laboratories and platform facilities of the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3) are at the heart of this dynamic new science.
SPIRAL 2 magnets under test. Copyright: CEA/Ph.Stroppa.
Regardless of the surprises Nature may hold in store for us, one thing is sure: the coming months will be decisive for our research. CERN’s research impinges on all the Institute’s main areas of research. At the LHC, researchers from ten IN2P3 laboratories (and from its computing centre) are involved in the four major experiments: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and ALICE. In 2012, no fewer than 248 researchers will be continuing their eager pursuit of the Higgs boson, and keeping a lookout for new physics. Neutrinos could also reveal some of their mysteries, thanks to ongoing research at the Opera experiment in Gran Sasso, Italy, and other experiments including Double Chooz in the Ardennes and T2K in Japan.
In the domain of nuclear physics, the future accelerator known as SPIRAL 2 will be a world-class international facility for studying the structure of the atomic nucleus in greater detail. Its construction, at the GANIL site in Caen, France, is slated to be completed in 2012, and the first data are expected to be delivered in 2013.
Finally, in astroparticle physics the first results from AMS, an experiment that counts 16 IN2P3 scientists among its participants, could improve our knowledge about antimatter in the universe.
2012 will also be a year for reflection: as the roadmap for particle physics in Europe starts to take shape, French scientists from IN2P3 and from the CEA institute IRFU will be meeting in the spring to present and discuss the main aspects of the two institutes’ scientific programmes for the next ten years. A major challenge for the French community of physicists, for whom the coming years—starting with 2012—promise to be exciting from the scientific point of view.
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More on the IN2P3's and IRFU’s reflections on future prospects are available here.
by Jacques Martino, Director of the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3)
