This is Austria's Largest Particle Physics Lab

By merging the Institute for High Energy Physics and the Stefan Meyer Institute, the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has created Austria's largest center for experimental and theoretical particle physics. More than 100 people will work at the ÖAW location in the former Vienna Postal Savings Bank at the facility named after the Austrian physicist Marietta Blau (1894-1970). On Friday, the "Marietta-Blau-Institute" will be officially inaugurated.

HEPHY + SMI = MBI

In the "Marietta-Blau-Institute" (MBI), the two traditional particle physics institutes of the ÖAW come together: the Institute for High Energy Physics (HEPHY), founded in 1966, and the Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics (SMI; formerly: Institute for Medium Energy Physics), a successor to the renowned Vienna Institute for Radium Research, the world's first institute for the study of radioactivity. The merger had been discussed for years, and the decisive factor for the fusion was now the relocation of both institutions to the new ÖAW location at the Postal Savings Bank: "The decision was seen as sensible from all sides - to find synergies and unite forces," explained the previous HEPHY head Jochen Schieck according to the Academy. More international visibility is also expected.

The focus of MBI's work is basic research in the field of elementary particle physics. The scientists are engaged in exploring the smallest building blocks of the universe and the forces acting between them. "Do we fully understand the universe," is one of the big questions at the center of the work, according to the previous SMI head Eberhard Widmann. Furthermore, the researchers want to know what the universe is made of, which invisible forces guide its components, where the mysterious dark matter is located, and where the enigmatic antimatter has gone, which according to the laws of physics should be as abundant as matter.

Switzerland, Japan, Italy

Like its two predecessors, the MBI is involved in the largest particle physics experiments in the world. These include the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Antiproton Decelerator/ELENA at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN near Geneva (Switzerland), the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization KEK in Japan, or the world's largest underground laboratory, the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. The institute's expertise lies, among other things, in the development of particle detectors.

The scientists of the MBI will jointly contribute to the next version of the ALICE detector at the LHC, a huge experiment that captures the traces of particle collisions at the large CERN particle accelerator. "ALICE-3, the follow-up project to the current experiment, is expected to become a largely new detector, with novel curved silicon detectors with significantly improved spatial resolution for particle tracks," Schieck explained to the APA.

Two important new research infrastructures will be created for the MBI: a cryolab with a cooling device (cryostat) operated with two helium isotopes (3He/4He). The cryostat can reach ultra-low temperatures, just one hundredth of a degree above the absolute zero point of minus 273.15 degrees Celsius. "With this, we want to develop and test detectors for dark matter, as well as search for violations in the symmetry of natural laws with ultra-cold hydrogen," said Widmann. Also new is a clean room, primarily for the development of silicon-based particle sensors for future experiments, according to Schieck. The two previous institute directors will lead the MBI as equal directors.

Several Doctoral Students

With its involvement in current research projects, the MBI is also committed to the education of young physicists in close cooperation with the Technical University (TU) Vienna and the University of Vienna. About a quarter of the more than 100 employees are doctoral students.

(APA/Red)

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