Tag Archives: Evento scientifico

Speaker: Marco Scodeggio (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Since 2009, the BESIII experiment at the BEPCII lepton collider has played a central role in hadron spectroscopy, in measurements of charmed-hadron decay properties, and in precision QCD studies at the interface between the perturbative and non-perturbative regimes. Recently, an extensive upgrade program has been completed: the accelerator luminosity in the high center of mass energy region has been increased by a factor of three, and the innermost tracking system has been replaced by the new CGEM-IT, an inner tracker based on cylindrical gas electron multiplier (GEM) technology, originally developed for the KLOE-2 experiment at LNF. In this seminar, the current status of the BESIII experiment will be presented, highlighting some recent physics results and discussing the status of the CGEM-IT detector.

Speaker: Catalina Oana Curceanu (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) The theory of strong interactions — Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) — still lacks crucial experimental input in the low-energy regime, to understand how the transition from quarks and gluons to hadrons occurs. Among the most sensitive probes of this domain are kaonic atoms, in which a negatively charged kaon replaces an electron and orbits the nucleus. The energy-level shifts and widths of such exotic systems provide direct information on the kaon–nucleon and kaon nucleus interactions, key ingredients for understanding hadronic matter and the physics of dense astrophysical objects such as neutron stars. At the DAΦNE collider in Frascati, the SIDDHARTA and SIDDHARTA-2 collaborations have pioneered a new generation of precision measurements by combining DAΦNE’s unique low-energy kaon beams with state-of-the-art Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs). After achieving the most precise data on kaonic hydrogen and other light systems, we have now finalized the first measurement of kaonic deuterium, a long-sought milestone, and have opened the path to QED tests with exotic atoms. In this seminar, I will introduce the physics of kaonic atoms, present our most recent results, and outline future perspectives. Experiments at DAΦNE offer a unique opportunity worldwide to finally unveil the secrets of QCD and QED in the strangeness sector and to deepen our understanding of the role of strange matter, up to the stars.  

Speaker: Gael Finauri (TUM) In this talk I will review recent progress in the inclusive extraction of Vcb in the Standard Model through global fits to kinematic moments of the differential distribution. I will briefly discuss the theoretical framework of the calculation as well as the phenomenological implications. Furthermore I will present a recent work in the inclusion of New Physics effects in the global fit, constraining the available parameter space for the Wilson coefficients of the weak effective theory.

Speaker: Davide Milillo (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) A minimal abelian extension of the SM is considered, based on the introduction of a new massive, neutral gauge boson Z′. Due to the specific solution adopted for the cancellation of gauge anomalies, the new mediator has flavor non-universal couplings to quarks and leptons. As a result, quark and lepton sectors constrain each other to prevent large deviations from SM predictions. Moreover, correlations emerge between quark flavor and lepton flavor violating processes, such as lepton flavor violating B meson and purely leptonic decays. In this seminar, after reviewing the motivations and strategies for the search of BSM physics, the key aspects and predictions of this model for rare and SM-forbidden decays will be presented.  

INFN has a long-standing tradition in the use of synchrotron radiation and in the construction of accelerators dedicated to its use. The tradition started with the use of the ADONE 1.5 GeV electron storage ring up to 1993 and continued with the DAFNE electron-positron 0.5 GeV collider. INFN is now developing at Frascati a new user facility EuPRAXIA@SPARC_Lab based on plasma acceleration. This new facility in the framework of the EuPRAXIA EU project should produce FEL radiation beams for a wide range of applications. During this workshop the story of synchrotron radiation at Frascati from its early beginnings (e-synchrotron) up to nowadays will be reported with talks related to the past and to all the people who made it possible, to the present and to the future scientific activities.

Speaker: Gia Dvali (LMU and MPP. Munich) In this talk we first review why the CP-violating θ-vacuum is a built-in feature of QCD and how the mass of the η′-meson provides a direct experimental evidence for it. We then explain how the axion protects CP dynamically and define the axion-quality measure. This discussion, in particular, will make it transparent that the η′-meson is nothing but a poor-quality axion. Next, we introduce the so-called gauge formulation of axion in which the axion emerges as intrinsic part of QCD gauge redundancy without the need of any anomalous global symmetry. By the power of gauge symmetry, the gauge axion has an exact quality, as it is protected agains arbitrary continuous deformations of the theory. Next, we show that in a generic gauge theory the elimination of the θ vacua by an anomalous symmetry is correlated with the existence of a pseudo-scalar particle that non-linearly realizes that symmetry. Applied to the electroweak sector, this implies the existence of a new particle, a so-called ηw-meson, which is sourced by the B+L-anomaly and gets its mass from the topological susceptibility of the electroweak vacuum. We then discuss how gravity opens up a whole new perspective on the axion, promoting it into a consistency issue. Namely, once coupled to gravity, every topologically non-trivial gauge sector must be accompanied by the axion of exact quality. This requirement must be fulfilled by gravity itself which, due to Eguchi-Hanson instantons, possesses the CP-violating θ-vacuum. Strikingly, this implies the existence of …

The Workshop on Light Dark Sectors @ LNF (LDS@LNF) will gather researchers to discuss recent progress in the study of light dark sectors (covering light dark matter, axion-like particles, dark photons, and related scenarios). The program will cover topics ranging from theoretical motivations to novel experimental strategies, with the aim of encouraging exchanges and fostering collaborations within the community. This workshop is also supported by the PRIN2022K4B58X project “AxionOrigins: Towards a Complete Theory for the Origin of the Axion” (PI: L. Di Luzio), a collaborative effort involving INFN, the University of Padua, and Sapienza University of Rome. The meeting serves as the closing event of this initiative. The workshop will take place in the Salvini Auditorium (Building 36, access via the LNF secondary entrance at Via E. Fermi, 60 – see map). (Talks by invitation only)

Speaker: Laura Miller The nature of dark matter remains one of the largest open questions in particle physics. Despite numerous theories and experimental searches, both small-scale and large-scale, it has so far remained unobserved at the particle level. The DarkLight experiment located at TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada aims to leverage the ARIEL electron linear accelerator to search for a new dark sector force carrier in the 10-20 MeV range. Such a force carrier could undergo kinetic mixing with Standard Model photon, and thus could provide possible explanations for experimental anomalies such as the X17. As the DarkLight experiment has recently been installed and has begun commissioning, this talk will primarily focus on progress up to this point and future plans.  

Speaker: Shaikh Saad (Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana) Next-generation experiments like DUNE and NNBAR will greatly enhance sensitivity to neutron–antineutron oscillations, a direct probe of baryon number violation ($\Delta B = 2$) beyond the Standard Model. This talk discusses such oscillations in unified frameworks that also explain fermion and neutrino masses via seesaw mechanisms. Two scenarios will be discussed: (1) Type II seesaw with two color-sextet scalars, realizable in $SO(10)$/Pati–Salam models, and (2) Type III seesaw with a sextet scalar and color-octet fermion, naturally embedded in $SU(5)$. In both cases, the same dynamics linking fermion masses induces baryon violation, tying oscillations to flavor structure. Upcoming searches can probe new colored states up to $10^{11}$ GeV—far beyond collider reach—making $n$–$\overline{n}$ oscillations a rare low-energy window into grand unification and ultra-heavy new physics.

The workshop “The meV Mass Axion Frontier: Challenges and Opportunities” will gather experts in theory, cosmology, astrophysics, and experiment to assess the motivations, probes, and detection strategies for axions in the meV mass range. Topics of discussion will cover cosmological and astrophysical sources, current experimental efforts, and innovative approaches at the THz frontier. With generous time allocated for open discussion, the workshop aims to identify key challenges and opportunities in the field and to produce a report that will serve as a foundation for a future community roadmap. This workshop is supported by the COST Action CA21106 COSMIC WISPers  (PI: A. Mirizzi). This COST Action  focusses on very weakly interacting slim (m<GeV) particles (WISPs) which emerge in several extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. We also acknowledge DOT4-GR2 (Pi.  M. Angelucci) for providing local support. The workshop will take place in the Salvini Auditorium (Building 36, access via the LNF secondary entrance at Via E. Fermi, 60 – see map). (Talks by invitation only)