Life and matter sciences events

In the fall of 2021, the Foundation had the privilege of welcoming two of the three researchers awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics: Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who were awarded 25% of the prize each for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. The conference addressed a highly topical issue in the field of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and which has enormous relevance beyond the purely scientific: exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets, like Earth or Jupiter, that orbit stars other than our Sun. 26 years after Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet, astronomers have identified 4,000 more thanks, fundamentally, to the seminal work of our two speakers and to observations made from space and from Earth with telescopes of different characteristics and sizes, some of them in Spain.

Neutrinos, due to their scarce interaction with ordinary matter, can bring us information about very energetic phenomena that is generated in very distant and dense astrophysical objects that are unreachable to other cosmic messengers such as light, gamma or cosmic rays. Neutrinos can help us solve a problem that is more than a century old: where and how are the elementary particles that we receive on Earth accelerated with energies much higher than those reached in the large hadron collider (LHC) at CERN?

 Speaker: Juan José Hernández Rey. Research Professor at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics IFIC. CSIC-University of Valencia

The discovery of gravitational waves from the fusion of black holes and/or neutron stars has opened the door to a new exploration of the universe. The field of gravitational waves, which has seen first experimental results with LIGO-Virgo, at the rate of one or two events per week, will speed up the observations in the next two decades until the future Einstein telescope. New events are expected every minute by virtually exploring the entire universe and taking the research to the field of precision physics.

Speaker: Mario Martínez Pérez. ICREA Research Professor at IFAE

Light and electrons manifest their wave-like nature in their interaction with materials at microscopic scales. The techniques developed in this field have been consolidated in the last two decades. This conference detailed ongoing research in the fields of electron microscopy, ultra-sensitive pathogen detection, manipulation and synthesis of new materials and quantum information processing, all of which are cutting-edge examples in the emerging area of unprecedented small-scale materials control and exploration.

Speaker: Javier García de Abajo. Professor ICREA. Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO)

The speakers analyzed the role of CERN as a European Particle Physics laboratory, its transcendence not only in its contribution in basic science but also as a technological and training focus. The discussion process of the European Strategy that started at the end of 2018 and its conclusions were reviewed together with the international context, the challenges of a global effort and the different options currently on the table.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world. Since its commissioning in 2010, the LHC and its detectors have exceeded all expectations. With two decades of operation ahead, the LHC has not yet said its last word, and revolutionary new discoveries may be waiting. However, despite its potential, the LHC has its limitations.

Speaker: Aurelio Juste. ICREA Research Professor at IFAE

One of the great intellectual triumphs of mankind in the 20th century has been the construction of the ‘Standard Model’ of the fundamental interactions of nature. These theories describe the behavior of the entire physical world observed from the tiniest distances scrutinized at CERN's LHC accelerator to the most distant galaxies in the universe. Its formulation rests on two major theoretical pillars: Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity. Despite these amazing successes, many questions remain in our understanding of nature at a fundamental level.

Speaker: Luis Ibáñez. Institute of Theoretical Physics. CSIC-UAM

We are currently witnessing with great interest a second space race for the exploration of Mars. New space agencies and private companies are joining this adventure with great determination. But why? What is so special about our neighboring red planet? At this conference we had the opportunity to discuss the past, present and future of Mars exploration, and what benefits we can get from it. We also addressed some details of the NASA mission, which recently landed on the planet, and the remarkable Spanish contribution to it.

Speaker: José Antonio Rodríguez Manfredi. Center of Astrobiology. INTA-CSIC

Steven Weinberg, who died in 2021, is the last representative of a Renaissance scientist. A thinker who tries, with due modesty and without skimping efforts, to cover not only his field of specialty, in which he won the Nobel Prize in 1979, but the entire field of Theoretical Physics including its more philosophical or political derivatives, doing so from a deep knowledge of its history.

Speaker César Gómez. Institute of Theoretical Physics. UAM-CSIC

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