EPJ Plus Focus Point on A Future Higgs & Electroweak Factory (FCC): Challenges towards Discovery
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- Published on 04 March 2022
Guest Editors: G. Corti, B. Heinemann, P. Hernandez, P. Koppenburg, M. McCullough, A.-S. Müller, A. Seryi, J. Tanaka
This Focus Point on the FCC-ee maps the current status and the challenges lying forward to realize a future Higgs and electroweak factory like the one envisioned by the Future Circular Collider design study for the post-LHC era. This strategic guideline from the 2020 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP 2020) defines an electron-positron Higgs and electroweak factory "as the highest-priority next collider" that would allow a wide range of precise measurements of the Standard Model parameters including the recently discovered Higgs boson. The proposed FCC-ee best complies with this guideline, and consequently offers, in a cost-effective fashion, the broadest physics discovery potential and the most ambitious perspective towards a 100 TeV high-energy proton collider housed in the same tunnel and profiting from the new infrastructure.
The invited authors evaluate the progress toward the realisation of FCCs since the publication of the FCC Conceptual Design Report. Topics highlight the challenges lying ahead on the accelerator design of FCC-ee, ongoing work for the experiments and detector development, the open theoretical questions informing this endeavour and finally the computational and software challenges that should be tackled. These challenges also set opportunities for a wider community of scientists and engineers who are invited to join the diverse and dynamic environment offered by the FCC collaboration.
EPJ Plus Highlight - Reassessing radon as a reliable groundwater tracer
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- Published on 25 January 2022
A widely used technique for tracing natural radioactive atoms within flowing groundwater may not be as accurate as previously thought.
All radioactive materials which naturally occur in water will produce at least one isotope of radon as a decay product. As radioactive atoms are transported through groundwater aquifers in the form of gaseous radon, they are eventually transferred to the atmosphere. Measurements of the rate of this transfer can, in theory, be used to trace the infiltration of water into the surrounding soil. Yet in a new study detailed in EPJ Plus, researchers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, led by Elsayed Elmaghraby at the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, show that this technique could have a significant flaw.
EPJ Plus has two new Editors-in-Chief: Beatrice Fraboni and Gastón García López
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- Published on 21 January 2022
The publishers of The European Physical Journal Plus (EPJ Plus) are pleased to announce that on January 1, 2022 Beatrice Fraboni and Gastón García López took over the Editor-in-Chief role from Paolo Biscari and now share responsibility for papers submitted across the scope of the journal.
We would like to congratulate Prof Fraboni and Dr García López on their appointments as EiCs, and also take the opportunity to thank Prof Biscari for his long and highly dedicated service to EPJ Plus.
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Small and Medium Particle Accelerator Facilities in Europe
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- Published on 10 December 2021
Small and Medium Particle Accelerator Facilities (SMPAF) play a very important role in the landscape of European research. They can accelerate a variety of atomic nuclei, at energies in the MeV range, and have a cross-disciplinary application field. In most cases, they are open to external users, so a proper knowledge by the community of the possibilities provided by these facilities is of great importance.
Unlike other user-focused accelerators facilities such as synchrotrons, SMPAF have different characteristics. Given the relevance and the variability of the instrumentation and the available techniques (including medical science, neutrons, irradiation with swift heavy ions, detectors tests, low-energy nuclear physics, etc.), it has been found very timely to publish a series of focused articles, describing the current situation of some key centres of this kind. This Focus Point on Small and Medium Particle Accelerator Facilities in Europe presents a selection of ten representative and significant European SMPAF. Each article contains a brief description of the facility, including its often unique instrumentation or techniques, and a few recent research highlights.
All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 9 February 2022. For further information read the Editorial
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Innovative quantum materials
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- Published on 13 October 2021
Quantum Materials are materials where the manifestation of the quantum mechanical nature of matter constituents, which comes into evidence at the macroscopic scale, is used to obtain new functionalities. The study of quantum materials is relevant both on the fundamental and on the applied side. Indeed, this class of materials provides a common thread between physics, materials science and engineering. The focus is on emergent excitations, such as Dirac and Majorana fermions. In particular it analyzes their sensitivity to external perturbations, such as electric and magnetic fields, and boundary conditions that can be controlled by surface/edge terminations, defect states and nanostructuring.
This focus point issue of European Physical Journal Plus (EPJ Plus) provides a broad description of innovative quantum materials discussing a variety of different phenomena:
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Advances in the physics and thermohydraulics of nuclear reactors
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- Published on 13 October 2021
This focus point issue of European Physical Journal Plus (EPJ Plus) on Advances in the Physics and Thermohydraulics of Nuclear Reactors originated from a research project - project ”OCAPIE” supported by a grant from Compagnia di San Paolo, Turin - focusing on the possibilities offered by High Performance Computing to give new boosts in the solution of a problem that, even if well known since more than 70 years, still presents huge difficulties both from a conceptual and an application point of view.
As a result of such cooperative effort both from industries and academics, results are presented ranging from the more theoretic speculations to the more practical sides.
All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 5 December 2021. For further information read the Editorial
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Modified Gravity Theories and Cosmology
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- Published on 30 September 2021
This focus point issue of European Physical Journal Plus (EPJ Plus) aims to reflect the diversity of modified gravity theories and of their applications to the cosmological problem. The scope of the covered topics is enough broad, ranging from teleparallel gravity and gravitino problem in extended gravity up to traversable wormholes in f(R) gravity, from a model of lattice universe, up to addressing the Hubble tension within modified gravity. There are also papers dealing with modified gravity tests, namely, with Lense–Thirring precession, with observational constraints, including the black hole shadow, with the Solar system constraints to Brans–Dicke and Palatini f(R) theories, as well as with suggestions for high-precision gravitational redshift measurements as probes for gravity theories.
This collection also indicates that the modified gravity and cosmology are widely developing areas being in permanent contact with ongoing observational surveys and experimental programs.
All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 28th November 2021. For further information read the Editorial
EPJ Plus Highlight - Beer mats make bad frisbees and why it matters
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- Published on 05 August 2021
Whilst modelling the forces acting upon a thrown beer mat, physicists discover why flat discs have such poor flight potential.
The question ‘Why do beer mats make bad frisbees?’ may initially seem like something of an odd inquiry to spark research. Yet, by considering the physical properties of such a common everyday item, physicists can create models that also describe the behaviours of a wide range of objects. In a new paper published in EPJ Plus, Johann Ostmeyer, the University of Bonn, Germany, and his co-authors look at the dynamics that give beer mats poor fight potential.
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Light Pressure across All Scales
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- Published on 01 July 2021
This focus point issue of European Physical Journal Plus (EPJ Plus) finds its inspiration in the huge number of applications of light pressure across all scales of Nature, from space to nanoscience and atomic physics. Together this issue features 11 papers, including both experimental and theoretical works, which span a wide range of activities. These also include 3 review papers on the theory and practice of optical tweezers, its application in single molecule experiments and in the study of critical Casimir forces.
EPJ Plus Focus Point on Classical and Quantum Information Geometry
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- Published on 25 May 2021
What is information? What can we do with information? How are we supposed to understand information? How does information influence the development of modern Science?
Some, if not all and a thousand more, of these questions come to the mind of almost every modern researcher whose research area is somehow interconnected with Information Theory. However, the answers to these questions are far from being completely unravelled, and some recent theoretical developments seem to suggest that our understanding of the geometrical aspects of Information Theory will play an increasingly important role in the quest for answers.
