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 pionnucleon 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!