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On 15 and 16 July 2015, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Resource Board decided that the Roque de los Muchachos observatory, on La Palma, will soon host its major scientific installation in the northern hemisphere. CTA will be a scientific infrastructure composed of two observatories, one in each hemisphere, consisting of a network of new generation Cherenkov telescopes which will enable the study of very high energy gamma rays.
The network will consist of 100 telescopes, from which about 20 of them will be installed around several places in the northern hemisphere.
The ICCUB participates in the CTA project since its inception and has welcomed many working meetings of the network. ICCUB researchers have been contributing to the Physics and electronics by making simulations of the observations that the CTA will perform of Gamma Ray Binaries. Besides they made a proposal for observing transient galactic objects beneath one of the Key Observation Projects from CTA.
As Marc Ribó from ICCUB explains "The ICCUB and the University of Barcelona, will participate in short in the discussion of the many different CTA scientific cases of study and also in the development of technology and integrated electronics. Later on, when CTA is fully working, we will contribute to the examination of the scientific data, which will be managed by the CTA consortium (an entity to which ICCUB researchers belong)." "Being part of CTA –says the researcher– will also give us the oportunity of upgrading, in the future, the electronics of the cameras with new photomultipliers."
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The island of La Palma will host the Northern CTA site
The ceremony for the Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu awards to Excellence Centers and Units, 2014 Edition, has been held on 16 July 2015 in the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity. During the ceremony, which has been presided by the State Secretary for Research, Carmen Vela, the ICCUB executive and scientific directors, Lluís Garrido and Josep María Paredes, have collected the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence distinction for the ICCUB.
The distinctions Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu represent the highest award to scientific research for Spanish centers and units, and they are given after a strict evaluation process made by international scientific committees. Awarded centers and units stand out for the international impact of their scientific contributions, for their innovative power and for their strong relation with the social and economic environment.
Related news: http://icc.ub.edu/index.php?m=press_media&c=icc_news&op=frm_icc_news&open_id=201#news_201
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The ICCUB receives the accreditation María de Maeztu
For the first time, six research units (most of them university-dependant institutions) have become part of the elite which leads the most advanced scientific research studies in our country.
The six centers, including the Institute of Cosmos Sciences from the University of Barcelona, have been awarded the recognition "Maria de Maeztu" from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
This distinction will open the doors to new hiring opportunitites, both for experienced reserachers and for doctorate students. The half milion euros dotation of the programme, will specially help to the development and growing of research institutions which belong to the academia.
It is a fact that more thant the 50% of the excellence scientific production in Spain comes from universities. However, as Lluís Garrido (ICCUB director) noted, the scientific production of a university is usually evaluated as a whole which makes the excellence research carried there to go unseen and hence to be misappreciated.
For the next four years, the awarded institutions will become members of the scientific research dream-team and have the recognition they deserve, appart from the necessary fundings for keeping doing their outstanding labour.
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Elite science in the academia
The Gravity Research Foundation was founded by Roger W. Babson (1875- 1967) and the first awards for the best essays submitted on Gravity were made on December 1st, 1949. Since then, each edition has been a high level competition among scientists from all over the world, many times being the winners reputated scientists previously awarded Nobel Prizes.
This year the ICCUB member, Joan Solà and the ICCUB collaborator Paul Towsend, have been selected for Honorable Mention, and their respective essays would be publish in a special number of the Gravity Research Foundation journal.
Remarkable are also the 2 previous editions in which Dr. Solà was also recognized with this same mention. This third consecutive year it has been his essay titled "The cosmological constant and entropy problems: mysteries of the present with profound roots in the past" which has made him to receive again the honour mention.
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Honour mentions for Joan Solà and Paul Towsend in the 2015 e
UBTERM website has just incorporated "Termes d’astrofísica", a brief terminological compilation that offers solutions to denominate in Catalan some popular words in Astrophysics which are usually named in English. Some expressions are typically used in English instead of Catalan, either due to ignorance of its standard form in Catalan or just because it does not exist a satisfactory denomination reached by consensus.
The work has been developed by Jordi Miralda, ICREA researcher at ICCUB. The online edition has been carried out by the UB Language Services.
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"Termes d'astrofísica" by Jordi Miralda at UBTERM website
Licia Verde and Raul Jimenez, ICREA professors at the ICC, have been named Radcliffe fellows at Harvard University. It is the first time this very prestigious distinction has been given to a scholar based in Spain.
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Verde and Jimenez named Radcliffe fellows at Harvard Univers
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences has been awarded the distinction Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu in the first edition of the call organized by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO).
The distinction María de Maeztu consists on a new modality within the programme of Excellence Centres of MINECO started in 2011 with the only modality Severo Ochoa. The new modality recognizes the excellence of research entities which are included into more complex institutions like universities. The requisites, exigence levels, demands and procedures of evalutaion and selection related with the scientific excellence have been the same as for the Severo Ochoa, as stated in the press release published by the Ministry. The difference between the two modalities relies on the structure of the model of governance and on the organization and management squemmes of the institutions. As an institute belonging to the University of Barcelona, the ICCUB has received the accreditation of Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu.
Since its creation in 2006, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences has experienced a great development and nowadays it is a consolidated research institution. The progress of the institute has been noticed all along the previous Severo Ochoa calls where the ICCUB has always achived good positions in the rankings due to its high scientific level.
The ICCUB is a strong research institution in the fields of Theoretical Astrophysics and Particle Physics and even more in Cosmology, an area in which two members of the institute have been awarded the Gruber prize in 2008 and 2012. The ICCUB has developed an ambitious technological programme through its participation in the most relevant international collaborations in Observational Astronomy and Experimental Particle Physics over the last years. Examples of the renowed role of the ICCUB are its participation in Gaia, where the ICCUB team has been recognized by the ESA as a leader in the design of the setup for satelite data exploitation, or the participation in the LHCb experiment, for which ICCUB members led the construction and analysis of a specific section of the detector. Over the past years the ICCUB has given a new impulse to its technological programme by the recent creation of a spin-off located at the new centre BIC of ESA, and a new entity for electronic services (SiUB). Nowadays the institute has 161 members of 21 different nationalities, including permanent staff, post-doctoral researchers, pre-doctoral students and engineers. Besides, ICCUB is one of the research centers with more ICREA personnel (10) in Catalonia.
The distinction María de Maeztu means for the ICCUB a recognition for all the work done until the moment and also an important financial support for facing the challenges in the coming years. Concretely, the financial support of 500.000€ per year during 4 years will allow the institute to improve its scientific programme, enable the organization of more conferences and workshops, enhance the mobility of the members and visitors, strenghthen the technologic knowledge transfer, create new positions for researchers and engineers, as well as broaden the formation programmes by giving fellowships for master and pre-doctoral studies.
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ICCUB has been awarded the María de Maeztu distinction
The LHCb analysis presented at the Moriond Electroweak conference (La Thuile, Italy), shows deviations from Standard Model calculations.
The Standard Model describes elementary particles and their behaviour. Even though it is currently the best description there is of the subatomic world, it does not explain the complete picture. For this reason, theoreticians have developed models beyond the Standard Model, which would complete it. In this context, the LHCb experiment searches for new physics by looking for the effects of possible new particles in rare decays of particles that contain a beauty quark (B particles).
Recently, LHCb physicists have been studying the angular distribution of the particles coming from one of these rare B particle decays (B → K*μμ), a parameter that is highly sensitive to the effects of new particles. The new results are certain to draw the attention of physicists worldwide, as theorists consider the many possible implications.
See further details in the following link:
http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcb-public/Welcome.html#P5p
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Deviations from the Standard Model found at LHCb experiment
After a stop which lasted two years, the LHC placed at CERN, Geneva (Switzerland), will start its activity again during this year 2015.
For this new stage the collision energy of the LHC has been rised from the initial 8 TeV to 13TeV, a significant increase that will allow to unravel many details about the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe.
The Experimental Particle Physics research group of ICCUB will keep participating in the LHCb experiment during this new phase, specializing on the analysis of b quarks . Members of this group are currently contributing to the design of electronical improvements as well as to the study of new radiative processes.
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ICCUB researchers participate in the 2nd phase of LHC projec
- On February
19, 2015, the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona appointed Dr. Jorge Núñez de Murga Director of the Fabra Observatory of Barcelona.
Jorge Nunez is Professor of Astronomy at the Department of Astronomy and Meteorology of the University of Barcelona and active member of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences. He follows Dr. Josep Maria Vidal Codina, UB professor emeritus who has benn director since 1970 until now.
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Jorge Núñez appointed director of the Fabra Observatory