On 21-29 November, Dr Masayuki Wada, Dr Masato Kimura, and Dr Azam Zabihi visited the Italian island of Sardinia. Their scientific trip was connected with the ARIA project.
ARIA is a scientific laboratory for distillation of Argon-40, an isotope fundamental for use the medium in dark matter detectors. The project is realized thanks to the collaboration between INFN, National Institute of Nuclear Physics and Regione Sardegna.
The goal of the project is to build a cryogenic distillation column for the separation of the air into its fundamental components and for chemical and isotopic purification of argon. Purified Argon-40, in particular, will allow the development of an innovative technique for a direct dark matter search at the National Laboratory of Gran Sasso (LNGS) of INFN, designed and realized by the scientific collaboration on the DarkSide-20k experiment.
A 350 m high cryogenic distillation column will be installed in the Seruci-1 well, within the Mining Concession “Monte Sinni”. Currently, at the same mine, a test column has been already installed. It is called Seruci-0 and it is about 27 m high. The operation of this column is used to collect data on the physics of the process, and in order to train shifters from the entire collaboration.
In a communiqué dated 29 December, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education announced its support for the project “Astrocent Plus – Particle Astrophysics Science and Technology Centre (Astrocent Plus)”. The aim of this initiative is to develop the Astrocent Centre of Excellence in the area of fundamental research combined with innovative applied research and development activities in particle astrophysics.
The Ministry will allocate a total of PLN 29.7 million (the equivalent of EUR 7 million) to the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CAMK PAN). The funds will be disbursed in annual instalments through 2030.
On 19 December, the Foundation for Polish Science announced that it had awarded over PLN 34 million the project “Astrocent – Particle Astrophysics Technology Centre” in the MAB FENG competition.
Project description:
The overarching goal of the project is to develop breakthrough, highly scalable and multi-channel detection systems for scientific and commercial applications. The technologies being developed are crucial for research into the biggest questions of modern physics (including dark matter, neutrinos and gravitational waves), while also opening up new opportunities in areas such as medicine, security, environmental and climate monitoring, renewable energy, and seismology (including early-warning systems).
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