Twenty one researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) have been included in the latest edition of the Stanford ranking of the world’s most cited scientists, a recognition that highlights the global impact of their scientific work in the field of physics and astronomy.

The ranking, compiled by Stanford University, identifies the top 2% of scientists worldwide according to bibliometric indicators such as the number of citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted index, and citations to papers across different authorship positions. It includes two categories: one based on career-long impact and another reflecting influence during the past year.

Among the UB researchers listed in the 2024 edition, 21 belong to ICCUB, confirming the Institute’s position as a leading center for research in astrophysics, cosmology particle physics and fundamental physics.

The ICCUB researchers featured in the ranking are:
Francesc Salvat, Friedrich Anders, Mark Gieles, Héctor Gil-Marín, Kazushi Iwasawa, Raúl Jiménez, Jordi Miralda, Pablo Bueno, Pablo Cano, Jorge Casalderrey, Roberto Emparan, Jaume Garriga, Cristiano Germani, Adrià Gómez-Valent, José Ignacio Latorre, David Mateos, Javier Menéndez, Alessio Notari, Xavier Roca-Maza, Joan Solà and Licia Verde.

Their inclusion in the Stanford list underscores the international visibility and scientific excellence of ICCUB’s research, spanning topics from galaxy formation and cosmic structure to particle physics and gravitation.

The University of Barcelona is the Spanish university with the largest number of research staff in this group of leading scientists, with numerous researchers from across its faculties and institutes. The full list of UB researchers included in the Stanford ranking is available on the University of Barcelona news website.

Francesc Sabater, a graduate of the Master’s in Quantum Science and Technology, has been awarded the Jordi Porta i Jué Prize by the Societat Catalana de Física - Institut d'Estudis Catalans for his master’s thesis titled “The Fermionic Tonks-Girardeau Gas: Composite Boson Formation and a Novel Formulation of the Ground State Wave Function.”

The award was presented during the 63rd edition of the prize ceremony, held on Sant Jordi’s Day, and included talks by researchers Crina Cojoracu (UPC), Francesc Díaz González (URV), Jordi Miralda Escudé (ICREA-ICCUB-SCFIS), and Salvador Ribas i Puig (UB).

Sabater’s work explores theoretical aspects of strongly interacting fermionic systems, focusing on the emergence of composite bosons and proposing a new approach to describing the ground state wave function. The thesis was recognized for its relevance to current research in low-dimensional quantum gases.

The Jordi Porta i Jué Prize, established in 1962, is awarded annually to a master’s thesis with a strong physics component, completed at a university in a Catalan-speaking region. The prize includes a financial award of 1,500 euros, with the possibility of two additional honourable mentions of 750 euros each. Recipients and their academic supervisors receive a certificate of recognition.

Congratulations!

The Simons Foundation has announced its support for research at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB) to delve into the intricate relationship between geometry and turbulence in astrophysics and beyond. This funding marks a significant milestone as it is the first time the Simons Foundation is directly funding research in Spain or southern Europe.

ICREA Research Professor Raul Jimenez will lead this ambitious project, which aims to unravel the complexities of cosmic phenomena through the lens of geometry. The research will primarily focus on astrophysical contexts, seeking to provide deeper insights into the turbulent and complex nature of the cosmos.

The collaboration will bring together esteemed scientists from the Simons Flatiron Institute, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. This international partnership underscores the global significance of the research and the collaborative effort to advance our understanding of the universe.

The funding provided to the ICCUB is equivalent to an ERC senior grant and will be utilized to support PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at the institute. This investment in young researchers is expected to foster innovation and drive forward the scientific exploration of cosmic complexity.

Following the recent award of the Unit of Excellence Maria de Maeztu to the ICCUB, this new funding from the Simons Foundation further consolidates the institute's position as a leading research centre. The ICCUB is proud to be among the first recipients of funding from a prestigious US research institution, highlighting its commitment to excellence and pioneering research.

More about the Simons Foundation:

The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences.
Since its founding in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the foundation has been a champion of basic science through grant funding, support for research and public engagement. We believe in asking big questions and providing sustained support to researchers working to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

More about Raul Jimenez:

Raúl Jiménez (Madrid, 1967) obtained his PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute in 1995, then moved to the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh were he held a PPARC Advanced Fellowship. He then went to the US where he joined the faculty of the Physics & Astronomy departments of Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania. He joined ICREA in Sept 2007. He was a Radcliffe fellow at Harvard in 2015-2016. Among his main contributions to our understanding of the Universe: the first evidence of dark energy from the ages of high redshift galaxies and globular clusters, the origin of dark galaxies, the first clue of how galaxies are assembled as a function of time, the first determination of the expansion history of the Universe, the role of cosmic explosions in the survival of exolife, the role of symmetries in the universe, a lower bound to the cosmological constant and a new model of the universe based on quantum information theory and gravity.

The Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) Long Range Plan 2024 outlines the goals and strategic research directions for the future of Nuclear Physics in Europe. The document, developed with contributions from nearly 6000 scientists and engineers across Europe, will be unveiled today, November 19, 2024 at the “Presentation Symposium of the NuPECC Long Range Plan 2024” at the University Foundation in Brussels.

The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) has taken part in shaping the Strategic NuPECC Long Range Plan. Members of the Hadronic, Nuclear, and Atomic Physics group have participated in panels that have defined the future of the discipline. Javier Menéndez was a member of the Thematic Working Group on Nuclear Structure and Reaction Dynamics, whereas Arnau Rios was in the Thematic Working Group Nuclear Science - People and Society.

“The NuPECC Long Range Plan is the most relevant strategic document for the nuclear physics community in Europe. It is a huge undertaking, planning the research landscape of our field for the next 7 years. Contributing to this plan was a great honour and a responsibility for us” says Arnau Rios.

The electronic version of the Plan will be accessible on the NuPECC website: http://www.nupecc.org.

This morning, July 25, 2024, at 00:30 CEST, the Gaia satellite reached a historic milestone by completing 10 Julian years of uninterrupted and successful science operations. This anniversary marks a decade of astronomical achievements, exceeding the most optimistic expectations. Since its launch, Gaia has collected more than 2.5 billion astrometric data, more than half a billion photometric data, and nearly fifty billion spectroscopic measurements.      

The Institute for Cosmos Sciences has been a key participant in the Gaia mission since its inception, contributing both on the theoretical side and in the exploitation of scientific data. This collaborative work has been essential to the continued success of the mission and has enabled significant advances in our understanding of our Galaxy, the Milky Way.    

The European Space Agency (ESA) has highlighted “10 SCIENTIFIC TOPICS TO CELEBRATE 10 YEARS OF GAIA IN SPACE” as an example of the groundbreaking discoveries facilitated by Gaia. These achievements not only represent a scientific breakthrough, but also reflect the dedication and effort of the team involved.    

We encourage you all to join in this celebration of discovery and cutting-edge science.

Happy summer and keep exploring the cosmos!  

Dr. Joan Solà Peracaula, full professor of theoretical physics at ICCUB, has been distinguished among the Highly Ranked Scholars by ScholarGPS for his academic contributions both in the last five years period and as Highly Ranked Scholar in the lifetime category.
ScholarGPS celebrates Highly Ranked Scholars for their exceptional performance in various fields and specialties. On this occasion, the selection committee highlighted Dr. Solà’s prolific publication record, significant impact, and outstanding quality of scholarly contributions.
The ScholarGPS platform evaluates scholars based on their productivity (number of publications), impact (citations), and quality (h-index). Their extensive database categorizes over 200 million scholarly publications into 14 broad fields, 177 disciplines, and more than 350,000 specialties.
 Highly Ranked Scholars™, such as Dr. Solà, are identified through rigorous analysis of over 30 million detailed scholar profiles. The rankings consider lifetime or recent five-year activity, appropriately weighting each publication and citation while excluding self-citations. This meticulous approach ensures that only the most influential and high-quality scholars are recognized.
 Dr. Solà’s remarkable achievement during the evaluation period underscores his significant contributions to the scientific community. The ICCUB congratulates Dr. Solà on this prestigious recognition and looks forward to his continued advancements in the field of cosmology.
 For further information, please visit the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) website.
 

The Spanish Royal Physics Society has announced today the “Real Sociedad Española de Física - Fundación BBVA 2023” Physics Prizes. Dra. Carla Marín Benito, a researcher in experimental particle physics at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and a Starting Grant awardee to carry out the CLIMB project, has been rewarded with the Young Researcher Award in Experimental Physics.

The jury highlights that her contributions are recognized both in data analysis and in the technologies that have been used to improve the LHCb experiment. Her contributions have been fundamental to the development of the rare baryon decay program, providing complementary sensitivity to potential new physics effects and the development of new instruments. In this context, the leadership of large work teams is valued.

"For me, this award is a recognition of the work done since I started my doctorate, from a technical point of view, but it also gives value to the topics I have focused on, specifically the studies of rare baryon decays and the development of algorithms for the reconstruction and selection of events in real-time, which are crucial to be able to make the measurements. It is also a prize shared with all the people who have accompanied me these years, especially my thesis directors and supervisors during the two post-doctorates. I have been fortunate to always work with people who have given me full support and encouraged me to overcome obstacles and go further no matter how difficult the projects I proposed to them seemed", says Dra. Marín Benito.

Dra. Marín Benito obtained a PhD in Physics at the University of Barcelona in 2018 and continued her career with two postdocs, first at the Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire (Orsay, France) and later at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research). Since 2021 she has been a lecturer at the University of Barcelona.

Her research is framed in high-energy experimental physics, with the aim of experimentally testing the Standard Model, the current theoretical framework that describes fundamental particles and their interactions. Despite describing the results of the experiments with high precision, this model is not capable of explaining all the phenomena we observe in nature, such as the asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and is therefore incomplete. Her research focuses on the study of the properties of particles formed by a b quark, using data from the LHCb experiment, one of the main ones at CERN, where she is currently responsible of the Real Time Analysis project, including the online event selection (trigger), alignment and calibration, and reconstruction of the data.

Samuel Brieden, former predoctoral researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB-IEEC), has received the SEA Thesis Award 2023 in astronomy and astrophysics for his doctoral thesis “From the Precision Era towards the Accuracy Era of Cosmology with DESI”.

The Spanish Society of Astronomy (SEA) has just announced the resolution of the 2023 SEA Thesis Awards, which recognize the doctoral theses with the greatest present and future impact defended during 2022, in the areas of astronomy and astrophysics, and instrumentation, computing, and technological development in astronomy.

The SEA Thesis Award 2023 in astronomy and astrophysics has been awarded ex-aequo to Samuel Brieden for his thesis carried out at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) under the supervision of Dr. Héctor Gil Marín and Prof. Licia Verde, and to Jorge Hernández Bernal for the work "Meteorological pheno mena on Mars studied with Mars Express VMC images”, carried out at the University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU), under the supervision of Prof. Agustín Sánchez Lavega and Dr. Teresa del Río Gaztelurrutia.

The SEA Thesis 2023 Award in instrumentation, computing and technological development in astronomy has been awarded to Francisco Javier Bailén Martínez, for his thesis “Spectropolarimetric and imaging properties of Fabry-Pérot etalons. Applications to solar instrumentation”, carried out at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) under the direction of Dr. David Orozco Suárez and Prof. Jose Carlos del Toro Iniesta.

The Board of Directors of the SEA has highlighted the very high level of the theses presented in the category and in view of the high quality of the work, has also decided to grant a special mention to Antonio Fuentes Fernández for the thesis “High-Resolution Imaging of Relativistic Jets and Supermassive Black Holes”, carried out at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) under the direction of Dr. José Luis Gómez.

The 2023 awards ceremony will take place at the opening ceremony of the next SEA Scientific Meeting, which will be held in Granada from July 15 to 19, 2024.

Information about the winners

Samuel Brieden studied Physics at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen (Germany) and did his doctoral thesis at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Univerisity of Barcelona (ICCUB-IEEC). He is currently doing a postdoctoral stay at the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) of the University of Edinburgh.

Jorge Hernández completed his degree in Physical Sciences at the University of Salamanca (Usal) and after defending his thesis he obtained a postdoctoral contract at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (Sorbonne University, Paris).

Francisco Javier Bailén has a degree in Physical Sciences from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), a master's degree in optical and imaging technologies from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM); he currently works as an optical engineer in the solar system department of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC).

To all of them, congratulations!

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named the asteroid 2001 QH₂₂₀ after Jordi Portell, researcher at the Technological Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Sciences of Catalonia (IEEC) and member of the Quantum Physics and Astrophysics department of the UB.

The nomination of the asteroid after Dr. Portell is a recognition of his outstanding work on Asteroid Data Processing in the Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), where he coordinates several aspects of Gaia daily operations, including the detection of asteroids on the focal plane.  

The asteroid in particular, 2001 QH220, was discovered in August, 2001 in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS).

The organism responsible for naming comets, asteroids and minor planets is the Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the IAU, who publishes the new names on periodic bulletins. The Portell asteroid was included in the Bulletin #9 which was published on June 21^st.  

“This news came as a great surprise”, says Dr. Portell. “I feel really honoured and grateful to have a Solar System body named after me! I specially appreciate that such a recognition is related to my work on the daily data processing system of Gaia, where we faced quite a few challenges - but also had quite some fun, especially with the Solar System Objects team in Nice. This system, which processes millions of Gaia measurements every day, including known and yet unknown asteroids, is only possible thanks to the hard work of our team. Gaia is really an amazing project.”

Jordi Portell is an electronics engineer and Doctor in Applied Physics and Science Simulation from the UPC. He works on the Gaia mission by coordinating data processing activities. He is a specialist in compression algorithms and was in charge of aspects of Gaia daily operations, including the detection of asteroids on the focal plane.

He is the current deputy director of the Technology Unit for the software and massive data division, the operations and interface engineer of the Gaia mission Project Office, and is giving support to several projects, such as PLATO or NewSpace missions. He has published more than 50 articles in scientific journals, is co-inventor of a patent and has directed three doctoral theses. Portell is also the technology director of the spin-off company of the University of Barcelona and the Universitat Politècnica, DAPCOM Data Services, which markets its own data compression technology.

Could there be life on Mars? What are gravitational waves? What are the alternative theories to the Big Bang? How can we measure the rate of expansion of the universe? These and many other questions give life to La veu còsmica, an audiovisual podcast in Catalan that combines science, music and poetry. The first episode premieres today.

Throughout 12 chapters of 25 minutes, the researcher Lluís Galbany, from the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) and member of the Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), accompanied by the poet Esteve Plantada and the musician Joan Garriga, interviews experts on different topics in physics and astronomy, such as space exploration, black holes, dark matter or supernovae.

“The project was born from the desire to bring science closer to the public in an artistic way”, says Lluís Galbany. “This format seeks to attract the public so that they can understand first-hand general scientific concepts, learn more about the scientific research that is currently carried out, and be up-to-date about the latest advances in physics and astronomy,” he adds.

Scientists from different research centers, such as the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE), the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), participate in this audiovisual podcast, explaining how research is done in their field and why.

La veu còsmica interviews four researchers of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona such as Gemma Busquet, whose research focuses on the physical and chemical properties of the star formation process; Teresa Antoja, a specialist in Galactic Dynamics and Galaxy Formation; Licia Verde, an astrophysicist with interest in cosmology; and Jaume Garriga, whose research focuses on classical, semiclassical and quantum gravity (including string theory) and theoretical cosmology.

The poet Esteve Plantada and the musician Joan Garriga use the topics discussed in the interviews as inspiration for their artistic creations, which liven up the format while translating technical concepts. First, Esteve Plantada presents the topic to be discussed in the program and its historical context, traveling through time to explain how humanity discovered certain concepts. Later, after the interview conducted by Lluís Galbany, Joan Garriga and other invited artists end the program with a musical composition.

The project is funded by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), thanks to the Joan Oró 2022 Grants for the promotion of scientific culture in Catalonia, as well as the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE) and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB).

More information

Find below the full list of episodes:

• Mars and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, with Guillem Anglada (ICE-CSIC, IEEC)
• Asteroids, with Josep Maria Trigo (ICE-CSIC, IEEC)
• Star formation, with Gemma Busquet (ICCUB, IEEC)
• Black holes, with Mar Mezcua (ICE-CSIC, IEEC)
• Neutron stars and pulsars, with Nanda Rea (ICE-CSIC, IEEC)
• Gravitational waves, with Alicia Sintés (UIB, associate member of the IEEC)
• The Milky Way, with Teresa Antoja (ICCUB, IEEC)
• Large-scale structure of the Universe and dark matter, with Andreu Font (IFAE)
• Inflation and expansion of the Universe, with Diego Blas (IFAE)
• Cosmic Microwave Background and Hubble Tension, with Licia Verde (ICCUB)
• The Big Bang and alternative theories, with Jaume Garriga (ICCUB, IEEC)
• Supernovae, with Lluís Galbany (ICE-CSIC, IEEC)

Podcast available on the following platforms:

• La Veu Còsmica, canal de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@laveucosmica
• Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-veu-cosmica_sq_f11881181_1.html
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0QEROtx2gWi42wmm7BomhK

Contact

ICCUB Communication & Outreach Office

Anna Argudo and Esther Pallares

Email: secretariacientifica@icc.ub.edu