ANNIVERSARY The INFN marks half The Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Elisabetta Durante Romano looks at the origins of the institute, its subsequent development and its role in todav's maior collaborations. Celebrating 50 years: (front row, left to right) Luciano Maiani, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare president Enzo larocci Nicola Cabibbo and Carlo Rubbia at the opening ceremony of speaking at the opening ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the INFN anniversary event. the institute's foundation. On his left is Edoardo Vesentini, president ofAccademia dei Lincei. The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) is the direct heir to Enrico Fermi and Bruno Rossi's eminent pre-Second World War research. "Discoveries [in this field] do not guarantee immediately schools of physics. Its purpose remains the same - to investigate the profitable applications. Nevertheless, this kind of research stimu­ innermost structure of matter, a curiosity-driven research that over lates great industrial interest, as experimental requirements contin­ the years has led to a deep exploration of nature and that today uously force technology to move on," he said. motivates physicists to "draw a picture of the Big Bang". After recalling Fermi's fore­ As Giorgio Salvini, former Italian minister for universities and sight and farsightedness, CERN Fermi suggested research, recalled, the institute first wanted to equip itself with an director-general Luciano Maiani accelerator - the most powerful at the time. "Fermi himself had sug­ highlighted the INFN commit­ building an gested aiming high in energy...as it was new physics," said Salvini. ment to his laboratory and electronic Fermi - the last truly universal physicist - also suggested building an explained the expectations of electronic calculating machine, the first prototype of which at Pisa the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) calculating soon made possible the first commercial computer in Italy. and other international projects. machine, the first INFN president Enzo larocci recalled the history of the institute For Antonino Zichichi, the prototype of which and some of its most important achievements: international suc­ major physics themes to be pur­ cess linked to the names of Rubbia, Cabibbo, Maiani and Zichichi. sued in the coming years made possible the During the celebrations, these scientists described their view of the include matter-antimatter sym­ challenges of yesterday, today and tomorrow. metry, quark-lepton flavour mix­ first commercial Nicola Cabibbo underlined the international extent of the ing, supersymmetry and dark computer in Italy 26 CERN Courier January/February 2002 ANNIVERSARYl a century or research I Current research at INFN 1953 INFN actively participates in the foundation of CERN. Held Research Edoardo Amaldi is its first general secretary. 1959 The Frascati National Laboratory, equipped with a Subnuclear DAFNE, the electron-positron collider at 1100 MeV electron synchrotron, is built. physics Frascati for research on CP violation; a 1960 Led by Bruno Touschek, the first electron-positron significant INFN contribution to CERN towards collider is built at Frascati. the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider and 1968 The Legnaro National Laboratory, near Padua, is created now towards the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the study of nuclear physics and its applications. project; involvement in the Tevatron at 1969 The Frascati National Laboratory starts operating the Fermilab, on PEP II at SLAC and HERA at ADONE electron-positron collider. DESY. 1975 The Southern National Laboratory is created in Catania Nuclear As well as working at national for nuclear physics research. Later it is equipped with a physics laboratories, Italian physicists collaborate at superconducting cyclotron for heavy ions. DESY, the Jefferson Lab in the US, the 1986 The Gran Sasso National Laboratory is established for European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and research in astroparticle physics. the ALICE project at the LHC. 1990 The Bologna Centre of Computing is nominated to Astroparticle The Gran Sasso National Laboratory is manage the Italian Research Network. physics dedicated to the study of rare phenomena and 2000 the European Gravitational Observatory is created for the cosmic particles. This underground research development of the VIRGO project. centre is the most advanced in the world. At present, 5000 people, including employees, associated From CERN it will receive a beam of neutrinos university professors, scholarship holders and postdoctoral and with which to study neutrino oscillation. other students, participate in INFN activities. Neutrino physics is also the goal of the NEMO submarine project, while the high-altitude ARGO laboratory in Tibet focuses on cosmic matter - all of which are challenges that he views with both enthu­ rays. The interferometer VIRGO has been siasm and optimism. established in Pisa for the observation of Nobel prizewinner Carlo Rubbia looked forward to a spectacular gravitational waves. In the search for dark scenario. 'The new and fundamental role of particle physics is far matter and antimatter in space, INFN from being complete. Recent astronomical observations have collaborates in important space missions, demonstrated that 95% of the universe is made of dark and exotic using technology and instrumentation from matter and energy, still invisible and unknown: this necessarily particle physics. implies the existence of new kinds of elementary particle and of Applied INFN applied research includes medicine elementary vacuum," he said. Experiments with accelerators, such as physics (cancer diagnosis and treatment); the LHC, can offer important contributions, but other avenues of humanitarian purposes (draining of mined research must not be neglected and they can open the way to new territories); and culture (analysis and and promising studies. Rubbia added: "It's time to start a new and prevention of the deterioration of the artistic fascinating discovery game" heritage). Computing INFN, which is now the Italian partner in Stimulating students and data the European GRID project, developed the Included in the proceedings was a meeting entitled "Building the handling APE computers. future" at which INFN scientific perspectives in various research fields were considered - from nuclear physics to elementary particle and astroparticle physics. Among those attending were high-school The closing day, dedicated to human resources, traced INFN his­ student winners of the INFN contest - From atoms to quarks: a trip to tory through people, recalling the institute's spirit and tradition, the heart of matter.The aim of the contest was to stimulate students' where intellectual authority rules and where human relationships curiosity in physics and its fundamental research. are not submerged by hierarchy. >l CERN Courier January/February 2002 27 ANNIVERSARY II Presidential praise Fermi...professor of family left Italy for Stockholm, where he was awarded the During the opening ceremony of the 50th anniversary theoretical physics Nobel Prize for Physics. From celebrations at the Accademia dei Lincei in Frascati on 12-14 in Rome, [was] there he moved directly to the November 2001, the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, workingwithagroup US and Rossi soon followed. said: "The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare foundation's Despite enormous difficulties, 50th anniversary is evidence of the continuing effort of an of brilliant young research in Italy continued dur­ excellent scientific tradition. The institute has contributed students...known as ing the Second World War and it internationally to promote the quality and the prestige of the eventually led to major scientific Italian school of physics". the "ragazzi di via and political achievements. It Panisperna". was time for both a national and an international relaunch of | When INFN was born in 1951 it was paradoxically already 20years research via a general coordination of resources at both a local and old: its origins date back to Enrico Fermi and Bruno Rossi's schools a European level. of physics and to 1930s research in nuclear physics and cosmic On 8 August 1951 INFN was created, with its first branches in rays. In 1926 Fermi became professor of theoretical physics in Rome, Turin, Milan and Padua. Six months later, Edoardo Amaldi Rome, working with a group of brilliant young students who became was designated general secretary of the institute and was also known as the "ragazzi di via Panisperna" (the via Panispera boys). entrusted with the foundation of CERN. , | The milestone 1931 International Congress in Nuclear Physics held in Rome was the first platform to make the new Italian physics Further reading more visible to the external world and it opened the way to an extra­ The INFN Web site is at "http://www.lnf.infn.it/50esimo/". ordinary fertility of ideas and results by Fermi's group in particular G Battimelli 2001 Llstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. Storia di and within nuclear physics in general. una comunità di ricerca Laterza ed. Roma-Bari. I Soon, national political developments led to anti-Semitism and I the disintegration of the group. On 6 December 1938 Fermi and his Elisabetta Durante Romano. 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