I Am a Full Professor at the Physics Department of the University of Roma Tor Vergata And

My Job

I am a full professor at the Physics Department of the University of Roma Tor Vergata and a research scientist associate to the INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare). My research is in the field of experimental Particle Physics. I did my studies at the University of Roma La Sapienza, where I got the Laurea in Physics in 1980 with the maximum score. From 1981 till 1983 I was research associate at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA. In 1984 I got a permanent research associate position at the Physics Department of the University of Roma "Tor Vergata" and in 1999 I was hired as associate professor. In 1984 and 1985 I was visiting the Physics Department of the Harvard University in Cambridge (USA) and the Oak-Ridge Laboratory. From 1987 till the end of 1988 I was at the CERN with a two-year fellowship. In 1988 I won the Prize of ‘operosita’ scientifica’ of the Italian Society of Physics (SIF). In 1994 I won an “Alexander von Humboldt” fellowship for a research program at the “Albert Ludwig’ University of Freiburg in Germany.

My Research

I participated in several experiments on accelerators at CERN to study proton-proton collisions at 63 GeV (experiment R807 at the ISR), proton-antiproton collisions at 540 and 630 GeV (UA1 at the Collider, experiment that discovered the W and Z particles. The spokesperson, prof. C.Rubbia, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984.) and pion-nucleon interactions at 26 GeV (WA92 at the SPS proto-synchrotron) to search for beauty particles. Since 1989 I have been interested in studying the physics accessible to the future Large Hadron Collider (LHC), contributing to the working groups promoted by ECFA, the European Committee for Future Accelerators, and then to a specific LHC program of Research and Development, RD5, to study the muon detection. In 1992 I joined the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC started proton-proton collisions in 2009 and is presently the world's highest energy accelerator. Since 2005 I am the group leader of the ATLAS research group in the University of Roma Tor Vergata.

I am author of more than 250 publications for a corresponding Hirsch factor of 42 (ISI Web of Knowledge) with more than 6500 total citations and an average of 25.8 citations/article.

My Particle Physics Research

Particle Physics is trying to understand at a very fundamental level how our Universe works. What is matter made of, what forces are there and why, what happened in between the Big Bang and now to cause the Universe to be as it is? By now we know that there are two kinds of matter, leptons and quarks, and four forces that act, the electromagnetic, the strong the weak and the gravitational force. However, we have still many unanswered questions, e.g. cosmological data tell us that there is a lot of so-called "Dark Matter" in the Universe and the Nature of this Dark Matter is not yet understood within particle physics. Also, the fact that nowadays there is only matter and no anti-matter in the Universe is as yet unexplained within particle physics. High energy accelerators create conditions that allow us to shed light on such phenomena. At high energies new particles may be produced that could e.g. be the signature of the dark matter. The LHC currently has a center-of-mass energy 4 times higher than any previous collider. In 2015 the LHC will nearly double the energy again, achieving a center-of-mass energy of 13-14 TeV.
In 2012 the LHC addressed the question whether there is a fundamental Higgs boson as was first suggested in 1964. This particle would interact with all other fundamental particles and give them mass. On July 4th 2012 the ATLAS and CMS collaborations made preliminary announcements that they see a new particle that is consistent with being a Higgs boson and ATLAS published this result end of July 2012.
The ATLAS experiment is an international collaboration with more than 170 Institutes from all over the world. More than thousand scientists, engineers and technicians are currently involved in operating, upgrading the detector and analyzing it's data. They are all looking forward for the new run at higher energy starting in 2015 and hoping in a new discovery!