ASPERA (or AStroParticle European Research Area) is a network of national government agencies responsible for coordinating and funding national research efforts in

astroparticle physics Astroparticle physics, also called particle astrophysics, is a branch of particle physics that studies elementary particles of astrophysical origin and their relation to astrophysics and cosmology. It is a relatively new field of research emergi ...

Members

ASPERA comprises the following agencies: FNRS (Belgium), FWO (Belgium), MEYS (Czech Republic), CEA (France),

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

(France),

BMBF The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (; abbreviated BMFTR) is a cabinet-level ministry of Germany. It is headquartered in Bonn, with an office in Berlin. The Ministry provides funding for research projects and institutions (aim ...

(Germany), PTDESY (Germany), DEMOKRITOS (Greece),

INFN The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on the 8th of August 1951 ...

(Italy), FOM (Netherlands), FCT (Portugal), FECYT (Spain), MEC (Spain),

SNF SNF may refer to: Organizations * National League of Sweden (previously ''Sveriges Nationella Förbund''), youth organisation * SNF Floerger, polyacrylamide manufacturer * Somali National Front, a political armed movement * Stavros Niarchos Fou ...

(Switzerland), VR (Sweden),

STFC The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astr ...

(United Kingdom) and the European organization

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

History

ASPERA started in July 2006 and is funded by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

over a three-year period. ASPERA has come about through the existence of ApPEC (Astroparticle Physics European Coordination/Consortium) which was founded in 2001 when six European scientific agencies took the initiative to coordinate and encourage

in Europe.

Roadmap

One of the most important achievements of ASPERA was to produce a common European Roadmap for the future, in the field of astroparticle physics. Published in September 2008 in Brussels, the Roadmap presents the "Magnificent Seven", which are the Seven large infrastructures expected in the next 10 years to answer some of the most exciting questions about the Universe such as: What is

dark matter In astronomy, dark matter is an invisible and hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is implied by gravity, gravitational effects that cannot be explained by general relat ...

? What is the origin of cosmic rays? What is the role of violent cosmic processes? Can we detect

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by H ...

? * CTA, The

Cherenkov Telescope Array The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is a multinational project to build a new generation of ground-based gamma-ray instruments in the energy range extending from some tens of GeV to about 300 TeV. It is proposed as an open obser ...

, a large array of Cherenkov Telescopes for detection of cosmic high-energy

gamma rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from high energy interactions like the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei or astronomical events like solar flares. It consists o ...

KM3NeT The Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, is a European research infrastructure located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. It hosts water Cherenkov radiation, Cherenkov neutrino astronomy, neutrino telescopes designed to detect and st ...

, a cubic kilometre-scale

neutrino telescope A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos. Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino ...

in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

* Ton-scale detectors for dark matter searches, such as EURECA * A ton-scale detector for the determination of the fundamental nature and mass of

neutrinos A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that it ...

* A Megaton-scale detector for

proton decay In particle physics, proton decay is a hypothetical form of particle decay in which the proton decays into lighter subatomic particles, such as a neutral pion and a positron. The proton decay hypothesis was first formulated by Andrei Sakharov ...

’s search, neutrino astrophysics & investigation of neutrino properties * A large array for the detection of charged

cosmic rays Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar ...

* A third-generation underground gravitational antenna

References

{{Reflist

External links

ASPERA News Online

Official website

European astroparticle physics portal
Physics organizations