Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Encyclopedia
The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) is the coordinating institution for nuclear
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

, particle
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...

 and astroparticle physics
Astroparticle physics
Astroparticle physics, the same as particle astrophysics, is that branch of particle physics that studies elementary particles of astronomical origin, and their relation to astrophysics and cosmology. It is a relatively new field of research emerging at the intersection of particle physics,...

 in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. It was founded on the 8th of August 1951, to further the nuclear physics research tradition initiated by Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, in the 1930s. The INFN collaborates with CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

, Fermilab
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...

 and various other laboratories in the world. In recent years it has provided important contributions to Grid computing
Grid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...

.

During the latter half of the 1950s, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare designed and constructed the first Italian accelerator—the electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...

 synchrotron
Synchrotron
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field and the electric field are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam. The proton synchrotron was originally conceived by Sir Marcus Oliphant...

 developed in Frascati
Frascati
Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific...

. In the early sixties, it also constructed in Frascati the first ever electron-positron collider
Collider
A collider is a type of a particle accelerator involving directed beams of particles.Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.-Explanation:...

 (ADA
ADA collider
ADA was the first Italian particle accelerator and the first-ever electron–positron particle collider. It was operated from 1961 to 1964, by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, in Frascati, Italy.-See also:*ADONE...

 - Anello Di Accumulazione), under the scientific leadership of Bruno Touschek
Bruno Touschek
Bruno Touschek was an Austrian physicist, a survivor of the Holocaust, and initiator of research on electron-positron colliders.-Biography:...

. In 1968, the Frascati began operating ADONE
ADONE
ADONE was the first high-energy particle collider. It was operated from 1969 to 1993, by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, in Frascati, Italy.-See also:*ADA collider*Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati...

 (big AdA), which was the first high-energy particle collider, having a beam energy of 1.5 GeV. During the same period, the INFN began to participate in research into the construction and use of ever-more powerful accelerators being conducted at CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

.

The INFN has Sezioni (Sections) in most major Italian Universities, and 4 National Laboratories. It has personnel of its own, but it is mostly the main funding agency for high-energy physics in Italy. University personnel can be affiliated with INFN and receive from it research grants.

Laboratories

  • Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
    Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
    Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso is a particle physics laboratory of the INFN, situated near the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, between the towns of L'Aquila and Teramo, about 120 km from Rome. In addition to a surface portion of the laboratory, there are extensive underground facilities...

  • Laboratorio Nazionale di Legnaro
    Legnaro
    Legnaro is a comune in the Province of Padua in the Italian region Veneto, located about 30 km southwest of Venice and about 11 km southeast of Padua...

  • Laboratorio Nazionale di Frascati
    Frascati
    Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific...

  • Laboratorio Nazionale di Catania
    Catania
    Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...


Departments


Presidents

  • 1954-1959  Gilberto Bernardini
  • 1960-1965  Edoardo Amaldi
    Edoardo Amaldi
    Edoardo Amaldi was an Italian physicist.He was born in Carpaneto Piacentino, son of Ugo Amaldi, professor of mathematics at the University of Padua, and Luisa Basini....

  • 1966-1970  Giorgio Salvini
  • 1970-1975  Claudio Villi
  • 1976-1977  Alberto Gigli Berzolari
  • 1977-1983  Antonino Zichichi
    Antonino Zichichi
    Antonino Zichichi is an Italian physicist who has worked in the field of nuclear physics.-Biography:Zichichi was born in Trapani, Sicily, in 1929. He has collaborated to several important discoveries in the field of subnuclear physics and has worked in some of the most important research...

  • 1983-1992  Nicola Cabibbo
    Nicola Cabibbo
    Nicola Cabibbo was an Italian physicist, best known for his work on the weak interaction. He was also the president of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics from 1983 to 1992, and from 1993 until his death he was the president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences...

  • 1993-1998  Luciano Maiani
    Luciano Maiani
    Luciano Maiani is a San Marino citizen physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Lee Glashow and John Iliopoulos .-Academic history:...

  • 1998-2004  Enzo Iarocci
  • 2004- Roberto Petronzio

See also

  • Touschek effect - an effect first observed in ADA and explained by Touschek (after whom it is now named), whereby the beam lifetime of storage rings is reduced due to loss of the colliding particles from scattering.
  • Møller scattering
    Møller scattering
    Møller scattering is the name given to electron-electron scattering in Quantum Field Theory. The electron interaction that is idealized in Møller scattering forms the theoretical basis of many familiar phenomena such as the repulsion of electrons in the Helium nucleus...

  • FLUKA
    FLUKA
    FLUKA is a fully integrated Monte Carlo simulation package for the interaction and transport of particles and nuclei in matter....

  • The INFN Grid
    INFN Grid
    The INFN Grid project is the general container used by INFN — Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics — for its grid computing initiatives...

     Project: INFN involvement in grid computing
    Grid computing
    Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...

    .
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