TAUP 2023
Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics is co-organising important International Conference TAUP 2023
The XVIII International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics - TAUP 2023 will take place in Vienna during 28/8 – 1/9/ 2023. The conference is jointly organized by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (HEPHY), the University of Vienna, the Technical University of Vienna, the University of Innsbruck and the Comenius University in Bratislava. About 500 scientists from all over the world are expected to participate directly in the conference.
The TAUP conference was organized for the first time in 1989. Since then, it has been held regularly every two years in various locations around the world. It is considered one of the most important conferences for space research. The previous conference took place in Valencia in 2021, but due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was held online only. Therefore, the world scientists are particularly happy to be able to meet again in person in Vienna, present the results of their research and benefit from motivating discussions. The central theme of the conference is the dark matter of the universe and research on the fundamental properties of neutrinos, which interact with matter the least of all known particles. These mysterious particles can reveal the secrets of the origin and evolution of the universe, the dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe, and show the right way to formulate a unified theory of fundamental interactions. The dark matter of the universe, which was formulated nearly 100 years ago, is still considered one of the great mysteries of modern physics. The essence of the problem is that we observe significantly more gravitational manifestations in space than we would expect from visible matter. The assumption is that there is matter that is not observable using electromagnetic radiation. We cannot see this matter, so we call it the "dark" matter of the universe. Its existence is searched for by various methods, which, however, have not yet clearly confirmed its presence. At the TAUP 2023 conference, sophisticated experimental methods for observing dark matter particles as well as new theoretical solutions to the problem of the existence of dark matter in the universe will be presented.
Neutrinos are difficult to observe because they very rarely interact with a detector to leave an experimentally measurable signal. As a result of observing neutrino oscillations, we know that neutrinos have small masses, but they have not yet been precisely measured. Unlike other particles of the Standard Model of particle physics, their mass can be generated by a mechanism other than the Higgs boson, and can be related to a new, higher, energy scale in physics. Different types of neutrinos can transform into each other, but we do not yet know if this behavior is the same for neutrinos and antineutrinos. The neutrino does not carry an electric charge, and thus could be its own antiparticle, as suggested by Ettore Majorana in 1937.
In addition to the dark matter of the universe and the physics of neutrinos, the TAUP 2023 conference will also include cosmological lectures on the influence of elementary particle physics on understanding the evolution of the universe, and on the detection of high-energy cosmic rays from space. Since 2015, it is also possible to study the universe by means of gravitational waves. Worldwide, there are only a few scientific infrastructures that can observe the formation of gravitational waves due to collisions of black holes, neutron stars, etc. Part of the European initiative for experiments observing gravitational waves of the third generation, the so-called "Einstein's telescope", is also the preparation of a unique experiment, that will be the subject of discussion at the conference. Two special contributions will present the discovery of galactic neutrino radiation and the observation of gravitational waves through anomalies in signals from pulsars (rotating neutron stars).
On Thursday, August 31 at 6:30 p.m., the Austrian Academy of Sciences will host a public lecture by the Nobel Prize winner in physics, Professor Arthur McDonald from Queen's University in Canada, entitled "Using the messengers of the universe to understand its origin and evolution", which will address the possibilities of observations of astrophysical processes in space using electromagnetic radiation, neutrinos and gravitational waves.
Researchers (R. Breier, R. Dvornický, M. Ješkovský, J. Kaizer, A. Khatun, P. Povinec, F. Šimkovic) and PhD students (Z. Bardačová, P. Čechvala, E. Eckerová) of the Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics of the Faculty, participating in the organization of this international conference, will also present at the conference scientific results related to the theory of neutrino oscillations, the process of neutrinoless double beta-decay of nuclei, detection of astrophysical neutrinos using neutrino telescopes, Monte Carlo simulations of the production of cosmogenic nuclides by radiation from supernovae, as well as the development of accelerator methods to control the radiopurity of materials for ultra-sensitive experiments in underground laboratories.