Scientific Highlights

New ERC Starting Grant to improve the diagnostic capabilities of Time-of-Flight Positron Emission Tomographies with innovative detector technologies

September 20, 2022

Gerard Ariño-Estrada and his team plan to build a gamma detector for time-of-flight positron emission tomography with improved time and spatial detection features by exploiting a novel gamma detector design.

IFAE leads an international project to pave the way for the Einstein Telescope: a European Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatory

September 7, 2022

ET-PP is an Horizon Europe INFRA-DEV project that started on September 1st 2022 to address the fundamental prerequisites for the approval, construction and operation of the Einstein Telescope. The Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) is the coordinator institution of this project that comprises leading research centers from 11 countries.

The Higgs boson, ten years after its discovery

July 4, 2022

The landmark discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC exactly ten years ago, and the progress made since then to determine its properties, have allowed physicists to make tremendous steps forward in our understanding of the universe. The Collider Physics Group at IFAE joined the ATLAS collaboration since its inception. For 30 years it has contributed to the design and construction of the experiment and the physics analysis program.

The MAGIC telescopes detect vampire star nuclear explosion

April 14, 2022

Researchers from the MAGIC collaboration, have detected very high-energy gamma rays from a recurrent nova in the Milky Way. The results of these observations and the new discoveries about these stellar explosions have been published on April 14 in an article in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Moon’s orbit proposed as a gravitational wave detector

March 17, 2022

IFAE Theory Group member Diego Blas, in collaboration with Alexander Jenkins from UCL, propose using the variations in distance between the Earth and the Moon, which can be measured with a precision of less than a centimeter, as a new gravitational wave detector within a frequency range that current devices cannot detect. The research, which could pave the way for the detection of signals from the early universe, was published recently in Physical Review Letters.

ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Andreu Font Ribera

March 17, 2022

Andreu Font Ribera, researcher in the Observational Cosmology Group at IFAE, has been awarded the prestigious “Consolidator Grant” from the European Research Council (ERC). The project COSMO-LYA will allow Andreu and his team to use a large dataset of distant quasars to study some of the mysteries of our Universe: dark energy, inflation, and the mass of neutrinos.

PIC enters the ICTS map

March 15, 2022

The Port of Scientific Information (PIC) is included in the new map of the Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) of Spain, as a node of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES). This milestone will open up new avenues for establishing collaborations with research groups facing data analysis challenges.

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Creates Largest 3-D Map of the Cosmos

January 13, 2022

DESI has already mapped out more galaxies than all previous 3-D surveys combined — and it’s just getting started. Several Spanish institutions participate in the project: IFAE, ICE-CSIC, ICCUB, CIEMAT and IFT/UAM.

Deep Detection raises 1M€ in funding for X-ray inspection technology

November 22, 2021

The IFAE's spin-off Deep Detection has secured the investment from specialist photonics VC Vigo Ventures, Clave Capital, ESOM, and public financing. Founded in July 2020, Deep Detection is preparing to launch its first product, PhotonAI, an X-ray camera with deep learning capabilities.