Starting in academic year 2013/2014, the research group hosts a regular series of seminars, dedicated to our wide audience that includes physicists, students and engineers. These seminars feature excellent overviews presented by distinguished speakers and provide high value educational material for students . They prove to be the optimal venue for fruitful discussions between external experts and the group members.

The EPP seminars are registered as Specialist Course in Particle and Astroparticle Physics, co-organised by the Doctoral School of Natural Sciences of the UGent. The program for academic year 2018-2019 can be found below:

November 27, 2018

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: Florian Reindl (Institute High Energy Physics, Vienna)

COSINUS – A new direct dark matter search using novel cryogenic NaI detectors
Deciphering the nature of dark matter remains one of the major open mysteries  of present-day physics. Thereby, the situation in direct dark matter detection is controversial: The DAMA/LIBRA experiment observes an annual modulation signal at high confidence matching the expectation for dark matter which contradicts null-results of numerous other experiments in the so-called standard scenario. However, to date a model-independent cross-check of the DAMA signal which necessarily requires the use of the same target material (NaI) is still absent. The COSINUS experiment aims to not only provide this cross-check, but to give new insight on the potential interaction mechanism. The latter is achieved by operating NaI as cryogenic detector providing particle discrimination on an event-by-event basis – a unique feature for NaI-based dark matter searches.
In this seminar talk we will present the recent achieved performance of first generation detectors developed in the last three years and their future potential. We will give an overview on the plans for the COSINUS experimental setup whose construction will begin in 2019.

January 30, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 Lecture room)
Speaker: Helios Vocca (University of Perugia)
Virgo: past, present and future

After the gravitational wave detections during the first two observation runs and the birth of the multimessenger astrophysics there is a growing interest in the whole field. Nowadays the Advanced Virgo detector is reaching a good sensitivity and we are facing the third science run with a Ligo/Virgo joint search that could become a four detector run with the possible entrance of the Japanese detector Kagra.
In this talk I will describe the basic principles of gravitational waves up to their detections with a particular focus on the present status of the Advanced Virgo detector, and the foreseen evolutions that will be implemented for AdV+.

February 12, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: David Lhuillier (CEA Saclay)

Reactor neutrino spectra and tests of the 1 eV sterile neutrino with the STEREO experiment

February 26, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: Hans Dembinski (MPI Heidelberg)

From the muon-puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers to the proton-oxygen collisions at the LHC

April 2, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: Henrique Araujo (Imperial College London)

Status of the LZ experiment and direct searches for dark matter

May 29, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: Mauro Taiuti (INFN Genova)

The next cubic kilometer neutrino detector KM3NeT: neutrino’s and cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea

August 20, 2019

(11.00 am, Campus Proeftuin – N3 lecture room)

Speaker: Stefan Hild (University of Glasgow)

The Einstein Telescope Project for a European Gravitational Wave Observatory