Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011

Page created by Ivan Terry
 
CONTINUE READING
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
Astroparticle physics
           The European Roadmap
                 Draft 21 November 2011

                            www.aspera-eu.org
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
Illustration credits
Cover:
                ASPERA/ESA/Novapix/L.Bret            Science Advisory
                                                     Committee (SAC):
p2 & 3:
                         Map & lens: ASPERA          Ad M. van den Berg               Table of contents
                                                     Roberto Battiston
p4 & 5:                                              Laura Baudis                     Did you say
             MAGIC: R. Wagner / MPI Munich
     RX J1713.7-3946: H.E.S.S /ASCA satel
                                            lite     Jose Bernabeu                    «astroparticle physics»?
                         : MPI/  W.Be nger -ZIB                                                                    > p2
          GW simu lation
                                               h     Daniel Bertrand
    Dark matter: NASA, ESA, Massey/Caltec
            Kamioka obs,  ICRR , Univ of Toky  o     Pierre Binetruy
                                                                                      A century of exploration &
   Supe rK:
                     Supernova 1572: NASA            John Carr
 Cosmic ray shower: ASPERA/Noavapix/L
                                           .Bret
                                                      Enrique Fernandez               discoveries
                                                                                                                   > p4
 p6 & 7:                                              Francesco Fidecaro
              Galaxy: Hubble Heritage/NASA            Gilles Gerbier
  Ge detectors: Edelweiss collaboration/
                                        CNRS
                                                      Andrea Giuliani                 Current experiments & near
                     Double-Chooz: CEA/Irfu
                                  Virgo: INFN         Andreas Haungs                  future upgrades
                                  AMS: NASA                                                                           > p6
                                                      Werner Hofmann
                                                       Steven Kahn
 p8 & 9:                                                                               CTA: the next large scale
 Black hole: NASA/Dana Berry, SkyWorks
                                          Digital      Uli Katz
                      CTA: ASPERA/D. Rouable           Paul Kooijman                   infrastructure
                   H.E.S.S: H.E.S.S collaboration                                                                     > p8
                  Detection principle: ASPERA          Hans Kraus
                                                       Antoine Letessier-Selvon
  p10 & 11:                                            Manel Martinez                  Near future large
            KM3NeT & Auger: ASPERA/A.Saftoiu                                           scale infrastructures
                                  LIDO: Lido            Benoit Mours                                               > p10
              Gamma ray burst: ESO/L.Calcada            Lothar Oberauer
                                                        Rene Ong
  p12 & 13:                                             Michał Ostrowski                Long term & global large
                     LAGUNA: ASPERA/A.Saftoiu
             ET: Einstein Telescope collaboration       Sheila Rowan                    infrastructures
                                         LISA: ESA                                                                    > p12
                                                        Subir Sarkar
   p14 & 15:                                            Stefan Schönert
                              WMAP CMB: NASA             Günter Sigl                    Cosmology, theory & links
                             CMS detector: CERN
                                                         Ion Siotis                     to LHC physics
                           LSST: LSST corporation                                                                > p14
                                   Theorist: CERN        Christian Spiering (Chair)
                                                         Robert Svoboda
   p16 & 17:                                              Francesco Vissani              Environmental activities &
             Photomultipliers: Kael Hanson/NSF                                           societal impact
         Gran Sasso Laboratory: INFN/Volker Stege
                                                 r        Lucia Votano                                                > p16
                              CERN@School: CERN           Roland Walter
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
Astroparticle physics                                                                                             1
                                               The European Roadmap

                                        The way to the 2011 Roadmap             also includes the next generation
                                                                                high-energy neutrino telescope in
 During the past decade, three          The SAC recommendations are             the Mediterranean Sea (KM3NeT)
 Nobel prizes have been awarded         classified along essentially three      and a global next-genera-
 to physicists working in areas close   categories: a) medium scale             tion cosmic ray ground-based
 to astroparticle physics - solar and   projects or medium scale upgrades       observatory      following    the
 supernova neutrinos (2002), cosmic     being currently at different stages     footsteps of the Pierre Auger
 microwave background fluctua-          of realization and which are            Observatory in Argentina.
 tions (2006), and acceleration of      recommended unconditionally for
 the Universe (2011) - demonstra-       realization, b) large scale projects    In the third category, a megaton-
 ting     the relevance and vitality    whose construction needs to start       scale detector (design study
 of this field. After the opening       towards the middle or the end of        LAGUNA), with goals ranging from
 of the observational window of         the current decade and c) very large    low-energy neutrino astrophysics
 low-energy cosmic neutrinos, high      infrastructures at the interface of     to fundamental searches without
 energy gamma-rays also opened          astroparticle physics and its neigh-    accelerators (e.g. search for proton
 a new panaroma of the Universet        bouring disciplines: particle physics   decay) and accelerator driven
 on the Universe. Other domains of      and astrophysics or cosmology.          neutrino physics, can be developed
 astroparticle     physics       have                                           only in a global context and clearly
 progressed to levels of sensitivity,   The first category includes gravi-      lies at the interface between the
 which make likely analogous            tational wave advanced detectors,       Astroparticle Physics Roadmap
 ground breaking discoveries in         where a discovery in the next five      and the CERN European Strategy
 the near future. In view of this       years becomes highly probable           Update. This category also includes
 remarkable progress and of the         and would open an entirely new          longer range programmes, such as
 need for an increased coordination     window to the Universe. It also         the Dark Energy surveys like the
 and networking on a global scale,      includes dark matter searches,          recently chosen Cosmic Vision ESA
 the ASPERA Governing Board and         where the WIMP hypothesis will          satellite EUCLID or the US ground-
 the ApPEC steering committee           be proven or disproven within           based LSST observatory, and more
 have charged the common                the next 10 years, and neutrino         advanced gravitational wave
 Scientific Advisory Committee          property measurements, searching        detection antennas, like the next
 (SAC) to update its 2008 European      for neutrino-less double beta decay     generation Earth-bound Einstein
 Strategy for Astroparticle Physics.    or measuring the neutrino mass via      Telescope (ET) or space-bound
                                        single beta decay.                      LISA. ET construction would start
 The updated roadmap document                                                   after the first detection of gravi-
 of SAC has been endorsed by the        The second category includes            tational waves with the advanced
 above bodies.                          the TeV gamma-ray astrophy-             detectors, whereas LISA relies on
                                        sics observatory under the name         the success of the LISA-Pathfinder
                                        Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA),        technological mission.
                                        a worldwide high priority project,
                                        aiming at a start of construction       The above projects are presented in
                                        before the middle of the decade. It     more detail in the following pages.

                                                                                     www.aspera-eu.org
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
Did you say «astropar ticle
2

A new field
Astroparticle physics is a rapidly
growing      field    of    research
emerging from the convergence
of physics at the smallest
and the largest scales of the
universe, at the intersection
of particle physics, astronomy, and
cosmology.

As the field develops, it is expected
to open up new observing
windows to explore the dark,
extreme, and violent cosmos.

The past two decades have
seen the development of the tech-
nologies to address these questions
with a dramatically increased
sensitivity. For several of the          Bringing together the European community
questions we are at the threshold                  ASPERA
                                         Currently,  about 3000members
                                                                 European astroparticle physicists areAssociates
                                                                                                       working in the
of exciting discoveries which will
                                         field, in over 50 laboratories.
open new horizons. However, the
high cost of frontline astroparticle     In 2001, ApPEC (Astroparticle Physics European Coordination) was
projects requires international colla-   founded as an interest grouping of several European scientific
boration, as does the realisation        agencies, in order to promote cooperation and coordination. Since
of the infrastructure. Cubic-kilo-       2006 it has been flanked by ASPERA, a European Union ERANET project.
metre neutrino telescopes, large         ASPERA is a European network of national government agencies
gamma ray observatories, Megaton         responsible for coordinating and funding national research efforts in
detectors for proton decay, or           astroparticle physics.
ultimate low-temperature devices
to search for dark matter particles      In 2008, a first European strategy for astroparticle physics was presented
or neutrino-less double beta decay       by the ASPERA roadmap committee, describing the status and desirable
are at the hundred million Euro          large infrastructures for the next decade. The process included several
scale. Cooperation is the only way       meetings, encompassing the whole community.
to achieve the critical mass for
projects which require budgets and       Furthermore, ASPERA tries to enable interdisciplinary activities with envi-
manpower not available to a single       ronmental sciences, cooperation with small and medium enterprises and
nation, to avoid duplication of          develops European common calls for R&D and design studies in the field
resources and infrastructure, and to     of astroparticle physics.
keep Europe in a leading position.
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
physics»?                                                                              3

W h a t      is        d ar k m a tt e r ?

     w   Ha t      i   s       d a r k e n E r g y?

 W   h e r e d o               c Os m i c r ay s
                                    c o me f r o m?

  W  h a T do e s T he s k y l o o k
l i k e a t h i g h e s t e n er g i es ?

             W ha t i s t h e r o l e of
         n e u t r i n o s i n c o s mi c e v ol u t i o n ?

      wha t d o neu t                      r   i nos t e l l      u s
a b o ut      t h e        i    n t e r i or       o f   st   ars ?

                               w h a   t   i s t he      n   a t u re o f
                               Gr a v i t y ?

         Do p r o t on s h a ve a
      f i n i t e l i f e - t i me ?

                                                                   www.aspera-eu.org
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
A centur y of exploration
4

New messengers
The opening of two new windows
to the universe is among the
spectacular successes of astropar-
ticle physics of the last 25 years:
the neutrino window (the Sun
and a supernova) and the window
of high-energy gamma rays. The
study of cosmic neutrinos also
revealed that neutrinos have a
mass, with fundamental conse-
quences for the role of these
particles in cosmic evolution.
Astronomers and physicists have
discovered that the expansion of              Violent universe: one of the two large atmospheric imaging Cherenkov telescopes of the
                                       <
                                         <

the Universe accelerates. Other        research infrastructure MAGIC located in the Canary Islands. It is equipped with a mirror surface
branches of astroparticle physics      of 236 m2. Below is a picture of RX J1713.7-3946 as seen through the eyes of H.E.S.S. in Namibia,
                                       showing clearly high-energy particle acceleration in the shell of this supernova remnant. Both MAGIC
have progressed to levels of           and H.E.S.S. probe the universe at very high energies.
sensitivity that make analogous
groundbreaking discoveries likely
in the near future. This applies
to the detection of gravitational
waves and dark matter particles,
the origin of high energy cosmic
rays and neutrinos, the determina-
tion of the neutrino mass or, later,
the observation of proton decay
and the understanding of dark
                                                                                         The discovery of gravitational waves would open
                                                                                      <

energy.
                                                                                      a new way to study the most violent phenmonena in
                                                                                      the cosmos.

 19     1 2  : di sc ov er  y of  co sm   ic ra ys     1930: discovery                                                                  of

                        er gy ga m m a ra ys  19  87 :  Ne utrino detection
first source of high-en
     1956: discovery of neutr inos
                                                                                                 n                     1965:
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
& discoveries                                                                                                                                        5

                                                          < Caption on dark matter...
                                                          This composite shows normal matter in red,
                                                          dark matter as seen by indirect detection in
                                                          blue and stars and galaxies in grey.

                                                                                                              Supernova 1572, known as Tycho’s

                                                                                                         <
                                                                                                         Supernova, is seen here as a composite picture
                                                                                                         of different images from x-rays to infrared
                                                                                                         wavelength, reflecting the potential of multi-
                                                                                                         messenger astronomy.

                                                                                                             Cosmic rays Cosmic rays are protons and
                                                                                                         <

                                                                                                         atomic nuclei that travel across the Universe at
                                                                                                         close to the speed of light. When these particles
                                                                                                         smash into the upper atmosphere, they create
                                                                                                         a cascade of secondary particles, called an air
                                                                                                         shower. We still don’t know where cosmic rays
                                                                                                         exactly come from.

      Super Kamiokande: mounting of photomultpliers on top of the Super Kamiokande detector in
   <

   Japan. This is the successor of the Kamiokande experiment that in 1987 detected for the first time
   neutrinos from a supernova.

  cosmic ray showers                                                       1989: discovery of the

from Supernova SN 1987A                                      1932: discovery of positron                                     e+
discovery of the cosmic                   microwave background ...
                                                                                                                www.aspera-eu.org
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
Curre n t e x p e r im e n t s &
6

                                                       Dark matter
                                                       With the advent of the LHC and
                                                       thanks to a new generation of
                                                       astroparticle experiments that
The current astroparticle physics                      use direct and indirect detection
programme includes medium                              methods,     the     well-motivated
scale projects or upgrades at                          SUSY-WIMP dark matter hypothesis
different stages of realization,                       will be proven or disproven within       About EURECA
whose funding has to be kept at                        the next 5-10 years.                     EURECA is a European project
at substantial levels, for different                                                            using cryogenic detectors at a
reasons: some of these projects                        The annual modulation signal
                                                       observed by DAMA/LIBRA, and              temperature of a few millikelvin
just entered a phase with high                                                                  for dark matter search.
discovery potential; some go                           its interpretation in terms of
hand in hand with LHC physics;                         dark matter interactions, will           It is based on the expertise
others are technologically ready                       also be scrutinized in the next          of two cutting edge running
and have a worldwide community                         years. The dramatic progress of          experiments:   CRESST   and
behind them. For a last category,                      the    liquid-xenon   technology         EDELWEISS.
a delay of crucial decisions and                       over the past 2-3 years demons-
funding could even jeopardize                          trates a high momentum, which            EURECA is presently in its Design
jeopardize them as projects.                           must be maintained. The recently         Study     phase     (2009-2012),
                                                       approved XENON1T at Gran                 supported financially by several
                                                       Sasso laboratory is expected             of the ASPERA funding insti-
                                                       to start operation in 2014/15.           tutions. The Design Study will
                                                                                                define the key options of the
                                                       The      bolometric     experiments      project.
                                                       CDMS and Edelweiss have recently
                                                       provided upper limits close to those     In 2013, construction work within
                                                       of XENON100 and move towards             its first phase involving 150 kg
                                                       a closer US-Europe coordination.         of detectors wil start. A second
                                                       A next global step would be a            phase of the EURECA experiment,
                                                       ton-scale detector, EURECA. Looking      beginning in 2016, will involve up
                                                       beyond the scale of one ton, a           to one ton of cryogenic detectors,
                                                       programme extending the target           with extended measurement
                                                       mass of noble liquids to several tons    duration of at least five years.
                                                       is envisaged with DARWIN.

                                                                                                                                       ctor
                                                                                                  Photo of the Double Chooz inner dete
                                                                                               <
                                              been
   First arguments for dark matter have                                                        located near by a nuclear power plant in the
<

                  Swiss  scientist   Fritz  Zwic  ky
derived by the                                                                                 French Ardennes.
                                            ements
in 1933, after evaluation of the mov
                                                                                                                                            for
of galaxies in larger clusters. In the
                                           70s, the                                                  Aerial view of the Virgo detector
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
near future upgrades                                                                                                                          7

 Neutrino properties
 Several experiments in Europe are                                                                                           astronauts from the
                                                                                   e Station, just after it was deployed by
 either in the commissioning phase        AMS-02 onboard the Iinternational Spac                       will  provide the spec trum of cosmic rays
                                                                                 in the universe and
 or in the final years of construction:   Shuttle. AMS is looking for antimatter
                                          withy an unprecedented precision.
 GERDA, CUORE and the demons-
 trator for SuperNEMO will search
 for neutrino-less double beta decay
 and KATRIN for neutrino mass
 via single beta decay. Double
 CHOOZ, a nuclear reactor
 experiment, is studying neutrino
 oscillations.     The      mentioned                                                           Cosmic rays at
 experiments build on a long                                                                    medium energies
 experience and validation with           Gravitational waves
 precursors. They have been                                                                     After its successful launch, the
 recently joined by NEXT, a new                                                                 AMS detector will provide a
                                          With advanced VIRGO, advanced
 approach developed for the search                                                              wealth of new data on cosmic
                                          LIGO and GEO-HF, a centennial
 for double beta decay. The road                                                                ray composition and antimatter
                                          discovery in the next five years
 towards double beta experiments                                                                in space. At the same time, novel
                                          becomes highly probable with
 covering full mass range charac-                                                               detectors at ground level will
                                          the    ongoing and planned
 teristics for the inverted mass                                                                extend cosmic ray measurements
                                          upgrades to advanced detectors.
 hierarchy, depends on the                                                                      close to the energies covered by
                                          This would open an entirely new
 results of the current generation                                                              space experiments.
                                          window to the Universe.
 experiments.

                                                                                                        www.aspera-eu.org
Astroparticle physics - The European Roadmap Draft 21 November 2011
CTA: the next large scale
8

                                                                                                            CTA: towards a new era of
                                                                                                            gamma-ray astronomy
                                                                                                            The Cherenkov Telescope Array
                                                                                                            (CTA) is the worldwide priority
                                                                                                            project for TeV gamma-ray astro-
                                                                                                            physics. It combines proven
                                                                                                            technological feasibility with a
                                                                                                            guaranteed scientific perspective.

                                                                                                            The CTA project is an initiative to
                                                                                                            build the next generation ground-
                                                                                                            based very high energy gamma-ray
                                                                                                            instrument. It will serve as an open
                                                                                                            observatory to a wide astrophy-
                                                                                                            sics community and will provide a
                                                                                                            deep insight into the non-thermal
   10 000 000 times the LHC? Black holes are thought to be places of intense particle acceleration in
<

the vicinity of jets, such as those shown in this artistic view. CTA will allow the study of such regions   high-energy universe.
with unprecedented precision.
                                                                                                            Its mode of operation and the
                                                                                                            wealth of data are similar to
                                                                                                            mainstream astronomy. The
                                                                                                            design and prototypes of CTA,, as

    Probing the high-energy universe...
    The Universe is full of high energy particles. They come from
    violent phenomena such as remnants of supernova explosions,
    binary stars, jets around black holes in distant galaxies and star
    formation regions in our own Galaxy. Hunting for such particles
    can help us to understand not only what is going on inside these
    cosmic bodies, but also answer fundamental physics questions,
    such as the nature of dark matter and gravity.

                                          Current involved countries:
                                                                                    around the world have already come
                                          Some 800 scientists from 25 countries
                                                                                        e Array: Argentina, Armenia, Austria,
                                          together to build the Cherenkov Telescop
                                                                                   c, Finland , France, Germany, Greece,
                                          Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republi                                             ,
                                                                                       erlands, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa
                                          India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Namibia , Neth               ed  States of Ame rica
                                                                                       dom and Unit
                                          Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United King
infrastructure                                                                                                                                     9

well as the selection of the site(s),
are aiming at a start of construc-
tion before the middle of the
decade.

The CTA Project is currently in its
preparatory phase, which started
in 2010 and will last for 3 years.
During this time, prototype
telescopes and telescope parts
are being built and evaluated,
                                                       Artistic view of CTA. The cherenkov telescope array will be composed of telescopes of different
                                                     <

the administrative structures                       size that will allow to detect gamma rays at different energies.
necessary for the smooth
operation of the array are being
created, and the sites are being                      Extending an improved technology
studied using long-term satellite
                                                      Current ground-based gamma-ray telescopes such as H.E.S.S., MAGIC and
weather archives and specific
                                                      VERITAS have brought a breakthrough using the imaging atmospheric
monitoring.
                                                      Cherenkov technique. However, we have now reached the limit of what
                                                      can be done with current instruments. The CTA project is an initiative to
                                                      build a ground-based gamma-ray telescope of the next generation, that
                                                      will include an array of dozens of telescopes.

                                                      CTA will offer an increase in sensitivity of between a factor of 5 and 10
                                                      over current instruments, and extend the energy range of gamma rays
                                                      observed. It is expected that the catalogue of known very high energy
                                                      emitting objects will extend from the 130 that are currently known, to
                                                      over 1000. Thus, we we can expect many new discoveries in key areas of
                                                      astronomy, astrophysics and fundamental physics research.

                                                      With its user-oriented mode of operation and its wealth of data, CTA
                                                      will become similar to mainstream astronomy and provide data for a
                                                      wide community and - together with gravitational wave, cosmic ray
                                                      and neutrino observations - in a multi-messenger context.

                                                                                    detecting gamma-rays
                                              , but we can reveal their presence by
    High-energy particles are hard to trace                                           ays do not penetrate
 <

                                                                                 ma-r
                                            lower-energy cousins - X-rays - gam
 that are associated with them. Like their                       them   from the grou nd via the flashes of
                                       it is possible to detect
 the Earth’s atmosphere. But luckily,
                                           re, known as Cherenkov radiation.
 blue light they create in the atmosphe
  < The H.E.S.S. telescopes in Namibia, work on this principle.

                                                                                                               www.aspera-eu.org
Nea r f u t u re la rg e s c a le
10

                                                                                                     Towards high-energy
                                                                                                     neutrino astronomy
                                                                                                     KM3NeT is the next generation
                                                                                                     high-energy neutrino telescope to
                                                                                                     be built in the Mediterranean Sea.
                                                                                                     It must have sensitivity substan-
                                                                                                     tially larger than that of IceCube,
                                                                                                     the neutrino telescope operating
                                                                                                     in Antarctica.

                                                                                                     The      KM3NeT     collaboration
                                                                                                     produced      a    corresponding
  Artistic view of KM3NeT. It will be composed of thousands of photomultipliers, looking for high-   technical design report, funded
<

energy neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources in the deep sea.                                 by the European Commission
                                                                                                     Preparatory Phase programme.
                                                                                                     The technology definition is in
 What is KMNeT?                                                                                      its final stages with prototype
                                                                                                     deployment within the next two
 KM3NeT, an European deep-sea research infrastructure, will host a neutrino                          years, and eventual access to
 telescope with a volume of several cubic kilometres at the bottom of the                            deep-sea research. KM3NeT is
 Mediterranean Sea, aiming to open a new window to the Universe.                                     included in the ESFRI roadmap of
                                                                                                     European research infrastructures.
 The telescope will search for neutrinos from distant astrophysical
 sources like supernova remnants, microquasars or gamma-ray bursters.
 It will also search for exotic phenomena like dark matter or super-heavy                               LIDO is a platform for listening to the deep
                                                                                                     <

 particles.                                                                                          sea environment, making use of undersea
                                                                                                     astroparticle physics infrastructures.
 An array of thousands of optical sensors will detect the faint light in the
 deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions between
 neutrinos and the Earth.

 The facility will also house instrumentation for geo- and marine sciences,
 aiming for long-term online monitoring of the deep sea environment
 and the sea bottom at a depth of several kilometers.

                                          Current involved countries:
                                                                          , Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands,
                                           Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece
                                           Romania, Spain, United Kingdom
infrastructures                                                                                                                    11

About neutrinos
With the exception of solar
neutrinos and a handful
of events detected as a
coincidence with explosion
of the supernova SN1987A,
no       other    extra-terrestrial
neutrinos has been detected
so far. High-energy neutrinos
are expected to be produced
in cataclysmic events where              Artistic view of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The Pierre Auger Observatory takes its name from
                                      <

                                      the French physicist who discovered the existence of cosmic rays showers.
particles are accelerated up
to energies of the order of a
million times higher than in the      The Pierre Auger Observatory: the cosmic rays’ window
LHC at CERN in Geneva, the most
powerful accelerator ever built.      Following the footsteps of the                     that can spread across 40 or more
Colliding galaxies, gamma-ray         Pierre Auger Observatory in                        square kilometers as they reach
bursts shining about a million        Argentina, a global enlarged                       the Earth’s surface.
trillion times brighter than the      ground-based observatory is a
Sun, active galaxies which spew       priority project for high-energy                   The Pierre Auger Observatory
out vast amounts of energy and        cosmic ray physics, with a                         records cosmic ray showers
host vampire black holes are          substantial contribution from                      through an array of 1,600 particle
all candidate sources of high-        Europe.       The     preparations                 detectors placed 1.5 kilometers apart
energy neutrinos. Neutrinos,          include the development of new                     in a grid spread across 3,000 square
once       generated,     traverse    detection technologies, the search                 kilometers. Twenty-four specially
our Universe essentially without      for appropriate sites, and the                     designed telescopes record the
interaction and without being         attraction of new partners.                        emission of fluorescence light from
deflected so they will allow us                                                          the air shower. The combination of
to gather pieces of information       When cosmic rays smash into the                    particle detectors and fluorescence
on the most violent cosmic            upper atmosphere of our planet,                    telescopes provides an exceptio-
processes not accessible to other     they create a cascade of secondary                 nally powerful instrument for this
methods.                              particles, called an air shower,                   type of research.

                                                            Current involved countries:
                                                                                                         world have come
                                                            About 400 scientists from around the
                                                                                                       aboration:
                                                            together within the Pierre Auger coll
                                                                                a, Boli via, Braz il, Cro atia, Czech
                                                            Argentina, Australi
                                                                                                        ico,
                                                            Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mex
                                                                                    Port uga  l, Rom  ania ,
                                                            Netherlands, Poland,
                                                             Slovenia, Spain, Uni  ted King  dom   ,
                                      		                    United States of America and Vietnam

                                                                                                 www.aspera-eu.org
Lon g te r m & g lo b a l
12

Deeper in neutrino physics
The goals of a megaton-scale
detector as addressed by the
design studies LAGUNA range
from low-energy neutrino astro-
physics (e.g. supernova, solar,
geo- and atmospheric neutrinos)
to fundamental searches without
accelerators (e.g. search for proton
decay) and accelerator driven
physics (e.g. neutrino oscillations
and study of charge-parity (CP)
violation).                                                     Artistic inner view of a LAGUNA-like detector, a huge underground tank whose walls are covered
                                                             <

                                                             with thousands of photmultipliers.
Due to its high cost, the program
can be developed only in a global                                What is LAGUNA?
context; furthermore the timing
of its realization depends strongly                              The principal goal of LAGUNA (Large Apparatus for Grand Unification
on whether the indications for                                   and Neutrino Astrophysics) is to assess the feasibility of a new pan-
the mixing parameter defined as                                  European research infrastructure able to host the next generation,
θ13 will be confirmed within the                                 very large volume, deep underground neutrino observatory. The
next one or two years, permitting                                scientific goals of such an observatory combine exciting neutrino
a series of very exciting measure-                               astrophysics with research addressing several fundamental questions
ments for neutrino mass hierarchy                                such as proton decay and the existence of a new source of matter-
and CP violation using CERN                                      antimatter asymmetry in nature, in order to explain why our Universe
beams.                                                           contains only matter and not equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

LAGUNA is clearly at the interface                               The LAGUNA-LBNO design study includes the study of long baseline
with the CERN European Strategy                                  neutrino beams from CERN accelerators. When coupled to such a
Update
                         Web palette:
          to be delivered early 2013,
    CMJN 50/100/10/0                                             neutrino beam, the neutrino observatory will measure with unprece-
    CMJN 90/50/
where
                0/10
        it represents a high-priority                            dented sensitivity neutrino flavor oscillation phenomena and possibly
                                                                           #f9db21   #fafafa
                                                       #73accd   #d296c5
                                                                 unveil the existence of CP violation in the leptonic sector.
                                   #0064a8   #ad4797
     CMJN 5/10/90/0      #961075

astroparticle project.

                                   Current involved countries:
                                                                                                              ions from:
                                                                       scientists, CERN and 38 other institut
                                   LAGUNA-LBNO brings together 300                                           Spa in,
                                                                          n, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia,
                                   Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Japa
			                                United Kingdom and Switzerland.
larg e in f r a s t r u c t u re s                                                                                              13

                                                                                                 Einstein Telescope
                                                                                                 The path for research in gravita-
                                                                                                 tional waves beyond advanced
                                                                                                 detectors foresees two projects of
                                                                                                 a very large scale: the Earth-bound
                                                                                                 Einstein Telescope (ET) and the
                                                                                                 space-bound LISA project. ET
                                                                                                 construction will start at the
                                                                                                 end of this decade, after the first
                                                                                                 detection of gravitational waves
                                                                                                 with the advanced detectors and
                                                                                                 following successful R&D. The LISA
                                                                                                 project, for which preparatory work
                                                                                                 in on-going, would eventually rely
                                                                                                 on the success of the technological
   Artistic view of ET, composed by three superposed interferometric detectors arranged under-   mission LISA-Pathfinder.
<

ground in a triangle. Each interferometer has two 10 km arms.

 Towards a global approach
 Infrastructures such as LAGUNA and the EINSTEIN Telscope will require a global approach, which will be the
 only way to fund very large projects.

 It is in this spirit that the OECD Astroparticle Physics International Forum (APIF) was created. In the same way
 as ASPERA and ApPEC are playing this role at the European level, APIF brings together officials and represen-
 tatives of funding agencies of countries that make significant investments in astroparticle physics research.
 APIF is a venue for information exchange, analysis, and coordination, with special emphasis on strengthening
 international cooperation, especially for large programmes and infrastructures.

 APIF members can address issues that are the special responsibility of funding agencies, for example, legal,
 administrative and managerial arrangements for international projects. They may also consider matters such
 as access to experimental facilities and data, procurement of essential materials, and optimal use of resources
 on a global scale.

                                        Current involved countries:
                                                                                  United Kingdom.
                                        France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands,

                                                                                                      www.aspera-eu.org
Cos m o lo g y, t h e o r y &
14

                                                                                                         particles are favorite candidates for
                                                                                                         dark matter and could be generated
                                                                                                         at the LHC. The discovery of a SUSY
                                                                                                         particle at the LHC alone does not
                                                                                                         prove that it constitutes dark matter.
                                                                                                         For that purpose, the detection of
                                                                                                         cosmological dark matter particles
                                                                                                         in direct or indirect searches is
                                                                                                         necessary. Conversely, the detection
                                                                                                         of cosmological dark matter
                                                                                                         particles alone would not prove
                                                                                                         that they are SUSY particles. For that
                                                                                                         purpose, identification and investi-
                                                                                                         gation at accelerators is necessary.
                                                                                                         The synergy between LHC and next
                                                                                                         generation dark matter searches
                                                                                                         is obvious and opens an exciting
Links to LHC                                                                                             perspective.

The precise measurement of cross
sections at the LHC provides a long
awaited input to the understanding
of air showers from cosmic rays.
Several LHC detectors have been
tailored to study particles emitted
under very small angles. This is a
region of particular interest for the
simulation of cosmic air showers.
LHC extends the available data
to energies typical for the most
powerful galactic sources.

The most spectacular arc between
astroparticle physics and physics
at the LHC is the search for dark
matter candidates. Supersymmetric

                                                                                                                                                     the
                                                                                                               Different colours mark fluctuation of
                               ic Micr owav   e Back  grou nd (CMB    ) as measured by the WMAP satellite.
              Map of the Cosm
          <

                                                                                           universe.
                                                 considered as a view of the very early
          brightness of the CMB. This picture is
                                                                                                                      the accelerator-based experiments
                                      CERN  . Look  ing at part icle colli sion s produced by the LHC, CMS is one of
           <
              The CMS experiment   at
                                                 rsymmetric particles.
          that could detect dark matter supe
links to LHC physics                                                                                                 15

Cosmology & dark energy
The 2011 Nobel Prize for physics
has been awarded for the
discovery of the accelerated
expansion of the Universe – the
first hint to something like “dark
energy”. This riddle is presently
being tackled with traditional astro-
physical methods, but astroparticle
physicists have been engaged in
the field since the beginning. They
contributed their experience of
handling large data sets and with
cutting-edge technologies.

The next flagship projects in this
field are the ground-based LSST
project (2019), with US-leadership
and strong European participation,
and the recently chosen Cosmic
Vision ESA satellite EUCLID (2019).

In addition, expected results from              Theory                                 plans for the next-generation
the Eureopean Planck satellite                                                         astroparticle experiments in
will offer important inputs in the              Theoretical     research       often   Europe, the associated theoretical
fortcoming years.                               motivates experimental projects,       activities – apart from project-
                                                links distinct sub-fields of           specific analysis and computing
                                                astroparticle physics, and is indis-   activities – need stronger support
                                                pensable when experimental             and coordination.
                                                data have to be interpreted in the
                                                context of models, be it in terms of
                                                possible signals or as constraints.
                                                In parallel with the ambitious

                                           ey
    Artisic view of the Large Synoptic Surv
<

Telescope   project (LSST ).

                                                                                            www.aspera-eu.org
Environmental ac tivities
16

                                                                                       of astroparticle physics infrastruc-
                                        Synergies                                      tures, scientists from the associated
                                                                                       fields are capable of deploying
Technology                                                                             sensors in remote or hostile envi-
                                        Astroparticle Physics research
                                        infrastructures, whether located               ronments (ice, deep sea and deep
The next generation detectors
                                        underground           (underground             underground), something which
included in this roadmap will need a
                                        laboratories),      underwater/ice             would be by definition a difficult
total investment estimated around
                                        (neutrino telescopes), or on the               and costly task if they were working
1.5 Billion Euros over the next
                                        ground (air-shower detectors), use             on their own.
decade and the scientific goals
require unprecedented R&D efforts.      their environment as a detecting
                                                                                       The use of astroparticle physics
                                        medium. Accurate knowledge
                                                                                       infrastructures       by      multiple
Technological challenges on             and monitoring of its properties
                                                                                       disciplines is not just a wise and
optical components such as              is therefore essential to precisely
                                                                                       efficient use of resources, but fosters
mirrors, lenses, lasers, photo-         determine the characteristics of
                                                                                       the creation of new ideas that only
multipliers are of decisive             the cosmic messenger particles
                                                                                       happen at discipline intersections,
importance in the different areas       they are looking for.
                                                                                       leading in this way to scientific
of astroparticle physics.                                                              advancements in a great range
                                        As a result a large number of strong
                                        synergies have been developed                  fields: from earthquake prediction
To address these challenges,
                                        between astroparticle physics and              to wine dating, from space weather
ASPERA brings together the
                                        other sciences (geological, environ­           to microbiology, from volcano
community and industry through
                                        mental, biological, and many more).            geology to sperm whale sound
the organisation of technology
                                        The competence developed by                    monitoring, from temperature
forums. Such activities must be
                                        astroparticle physisists in complex            variation detection to biofouling,
continued in the future to develop
                                        sensing systems, the technolo-                 and many more.
further    close     relationships
between physicists and industrials.     gies they have developed for the
                                                                                       In addition, the emerging complex
                                        processing of large quantities
                                                                                       global challenges, such as climate
                                        of extremely pure and/or exotic
 R&D and smaller projects                                                              change, energy, biodiversity and
                                        materials, as well as the advanced
                                                                                       geohazards, demand a more
                                        systems for data acquisition,
 Smaller projects and innovative                                                       integrated approach that has not
                                        processing, and dissemination
 R&D activities are essential                                                          been achieved so far, but could
                                        that they have designed, have all
 for the progress of the field                                                         be achieved if members of the
                                        lead to great advances, not only
 and should also be supported                                                          associated communities would
                                        for astroparticle physics but in
 in the framework of interna-                                                          promote collaborations around
                                        other disciplines as well. Especially
 tional co-operation, including                                                        astroparticle physics research
                                        advantageous is the fact that
 common calls.                                                                         infrastructures.
                                        through the use

                                                                               to be
                                       < Icecube Photomultiplier tubes waiting
                                       integrated.
                                                                               Gran
                                          View into one the large halls of the
                                       <
                                       Sasso Laboratory in Italy.
& societal impact                                                                                                            17

                                                                                           shows how much it is important to
                                                                                           coordinate more communications
                                                                                           at the European level to promote
                                                                                           the field. There is a specific need to
                                                                                           organise activities that will make
                                                                                           astroparticle physics important
                                                                                           milestones of current and future
                                                                                           experiments greatly visible in the
                                                                  No cosmic rays
                                                                                           media. In this respect, it might be
                                                                                           useful that the future sustainable
                                                                                           body for astroparticle physics coor-
                                                                                           dination in Europe join the very
                                                                                           successful InterAction collaboration
                                                                                           with a full membership.

                                                                                           In addition, the development of
                                                                                           synergies for producing tools,
                                                                                           contents and events should
                                                                                           be pursued to stimulate and
Underground laboratories                          Outreach & education                     strengthen outreach activities
                                                  Astroparticle physics address very       across all the different European
Underground laboratories are of                                                            countries. Supporting and coor-
                                                  fundamental questions like the
much interest for many activities                                                          dinating communications for the
                                                  origin and nature of matter and
beyond astroparticle physics,                                                              future astroparticle physics large
                                                  of the Universe, which challenge
particularly for geoscience and                                                            infrastructures is a challenge that
                                                  the imagination and curiosity of a
biodiversity researches. They                                                              should also be seen as a priority to
                                                  broad audience. The cutting-edge
also provide the appropriate                                                               promote them widely.
                                                  technology and the sometimes
environment for developments in
                                                  exotic locations add another factor
the domains of wine datation or                                                            On the education side, there is a
                                                  of fascination. This makes astropar-
electronics.                                                                               strong interest of the community
                                                  ticle physics an ideal tool to get the
                                                                                           for     developping      high-school
Beyond the continuation of                        general public interested in basic
                                                                                           activities with cosmic ray detectors.
support to the Gran Sasso                         science. The support of activities
                                                                                           Support to such activities should
laboratory and the start of                       in education and outreach are
                                                                                           be encouraged and coordinated,
operations of the Canfranc                        therefore of growing importance
                                                                                           in close collaboration with other
laboratory, there is a unique                     for society and for the future of
                                                                                           networks such as IPPOG - the
window of opportunity to extend                   basic research.
                                                                                           International     particle   physics
the    present    Under-ground
                                                  The work started through ASPERA          outreach group.
Laboratory of Modane.

                                          LUCID
    CERN@school students present
<
        ray  Intensity Detector) to be launched
(Cosmic
into space in 2012!

                                                                                                 www.aspera-eu.org
Published November 2011

                          www.aspera-eu.org
You can also read