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 astronomical origin and their relation to astrophysics and cosmology. It is a relatively new field of research emerging ...
.
Members
ASPERA comprises the following agencies:
FNRS (Belgium),
FWO (Belgium),
MEYS
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (MEYS, ; MŠMT ČR) is a government ministry that was established in 1969. Before the federalization of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, it was the Ministry of Education of Cz ...
(Czech Republic),
CEA (France),
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...
(France),
BMBF
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (german: link=no, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, ), abbreviated BMBF, is a cabinet-level ministry of Germany. It is headquartered in Bonn, with an office in Berlin. The Ministry provi ...
(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 8 August 1951, to furth ...
(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
* Swiss National Science ...
(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 astro ...
(United Kingdom) and the European organization
CERN.
History
ASPERA started in July 2006 and is funded by the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
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
Astroparticle Physics
Astroparticle physics, also called particle astrophysics, is a branch of particle physics that studies elementary particles of astronomical origin and their relation to astrophysics and cosmology. It is a relatively new field of research emerging ...
in Europe.
Roadmap
One of the most important achievements of ASPERA was to produce a common European Roadmap
[https://www.appec.org/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Docs-from-old-site/2011_ASPERA_roadmap_update.pdf ] 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
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...
? What is the
origin of cosmic rays? What is the role of violent cosmic processes? Can we detect
gravitational waves
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...
?
* CTA, The
Cherenkov Telescope Array
The Cherenkov Telescope Array or CTA is a multinational, worldwide project to build a new generation of ground-based gamma-ray instrument in the energy range extending from some tens of GeV to about 300 TeV. It is proposed as an open observatory ...
, a large array of Cherenkov Telescopes for detection of cosmic high-energy
gamma rays
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically sh ...
*
KM3NeT
The Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, is a future European research infrastructure that will be located at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. It will host the next-generation neutrino telescope in the form of a water Cherenkov de ...
, 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 d ...
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 north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...
* 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 a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...
* 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 Sakha ...
’s search, neutrino astrophysics & investigation of neutrino properties
* A large array for the detection of charged
cosmic rays
Cosmic rays 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 System in our ow ...
* A third-generation underground
gravitational antenna
References
{{Reflist
External links
ASPERA News OnlineOfficial websiteEuropean astroparticle physics portal
Physics organizations