Editoria - agosto 2016

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Il Nuovo Saggiatore
Il Nuovo Saggiatore Sarà a breve disponibile online l'ultimo numero:
Il Nuovo Saggiatore – Vol. 32, anno 2016, N. 3-4
Apre la rubrica Scienza in Primo Piano l'articolo di G. Fiorentini et al. "SPES: a bridge between stars and society" che descrive le potenzialità e interdisciplinarità delle applicazioni dell'infrastruttura di ricerca SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species), il nuovo ciclotrone installato ai Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro dell'INFN, attualmente in fase di commissioning. Segue un interessante articolo di M. Capaccioli su materia oscura, tratto dalla sua presentazione al simposio celebrativo "Light&Life" di Varenna nel 2015, articolo dal quale è tratta la copertina di questo numero. Nella rubrica Fisica e... troviamo due articoli: il primo di F. Forti "Sapore di Giappone" parla del rivelatore Belle II, attualmente in costruzione al laboratorio KEK di Tsukuka; il secondo di M. Martini et al. "Material science and cultural heritage" è relativo alle metodologie scientifiche applicate allo studio e conservazione dei beni culturali. A seguire, nella rubrica Percorsi, due interessanti articoli sulla vita di scienziati che hanno avuto un ruolo importante nella sviluppo della Fisica: il primo di D. Lambert su Georges Lemaître, scienziato e sacerdote cui si devono fondamentali contributi in cosmologia; il secondo di P. Fré su G. Ricci Curbastro, L. Bianchi e T. Levi-Civita, "The three italians who paved Eintein's path to general relativity". Segnaliamo anche l'intervista del Consigliere Sara Pirrone al Presidente Onorario, R.A. Ricci, incentrata sulla storia della SIF attraverso i suoi Congressi Nazionali. Infine nella rubrica Il Nostro Mondo è presente, come di consuetudine, il programma generale del 102° Congresso Nazionale della SIF.
Dal 2016 Il Nuovo Saggiatore è disponibile al nuovo sito www.ilnuovosaggiatore.sif.it, dove ogni fascicolo è fruibile in una nuova versione sfogliabile online. Su questo nuovo sito verranno gradualmente trasferiti tutti i contenuti delle annate precedenti fino al 2000.
Temporaneamente continuerà anche essere attiva la pagina www.sif.it/attivita/saggiatore/econtents, fino a trasferimento completato.

Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 39, N. 1 (2016)
Il Nuovo Cimento This issue is dedicated to the Proceedings of the XIV edition of the IFAE (Incontri di Fisica delle Alte Energie) meeting which took place at the University of Tor Vergata, in Rome, jointly organized by the Physics Department and the "Tor Vergata" INFN division. More than 150 people attended, with contributions on "frontier" topics in particle physics. Four sessions (namely "Cosmic frontier", "Intensity frontier", "Energy frontier" and "New technologies") lasted three days, showing the fruitful complementarity of different approaches to open problems in fundamental physics. More than 60 talks and almost 40 posters were presented, a large fraction of which by PhD students: interventions by young minds animated the discussion and made all sessions vivid and productive.
Il Nuovo Cimento C (Colloquia and communications in physics) is published in Open Access

La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 39, N. 8 (2016)
La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento Photonic devices based on black phosphorus and related hybrid materials
M. S. Vitiello, L. Viti
Up to the discovery of graphene, artificial semiconductor heterostructures played a pivotal role in modern electronic and photonic technologies, leading to the development of highly efficient devices like sources, detectors and modulators. The fascinating capabilities of graphene have triggered an unprecedented interest in devices based on inorganic two-dimensional (2D) materials. Amongst them, black phosphorus (BP) recently showed an extraordinary potential in a variety of applications across micro-electronics and photonics. With an energy gap between the gapless graphene and the larger gap transition metal dichalcogenides, BP can form the basis for a new generation of high-performance photonic devices that could be specifically engineered to comply with different applications, like transparent saturable absorbers, fast photocounductive switches and low noise photodetectors. This issue contains a review of the latest achievements in black-phosphorus--based THz photonics and discussion on future perspectives of this rapidly developing research field.

EPJ E – Highlights
EPJ E – Highlights Non-equilibrium dynamics of magnetically anisotropic particles under oscillating fields
Gabi Steinbach, Sibylle Gemming, Artur Erbe
Janus was a Roman god with two distinct faces. Thousands of years later, he inspired material scientists working on asymmetrical microscopic spheres – with both a magnetic and a non-magnetic half – called Janus particles. Instead of behaving like normal magnetic beads, with opposite poles attracting, Janus particle assemblies look as if poles of the same type attract each other. A new study reveals that the dynamics of such assemblies can be predicted by modelling the interaction of only two particles and simply taking into account their magnetic asymmetry. These findings were recently published in EPJ E by Gabi Steinbach from the Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany, and colleagues at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. It is part of a topical issue entitled "Nonequilibrium Collective Dynamics in Condensed and Biological Matter." The observed effects were exploited in a lab-on-a-chip application in which microscopic systems perform tasks in response to a changing external magnetic field.
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EPJ Plus – Highlights
EPJ Plus – Highlights Distribution and Surface Enrichment of Radionuclides in Lead Bismuth eutectic from Spallation Target
B. Hammer-Rotzler, J. Neuhausen, V. Boutellier, M. Wohlmuther, L. Zanini, J.-C. David, A. Türler, D. Schumann
There is a growing interest in the scientific community in a type of high-power neutron source that is created via a process referred to as spallation. This process involves accelerating high-energy protons towards a liquid metal target made of material with a heavy nucleus. The issue here is that scientists do not always understand the mechanism of residue nuclei production, which can only be identified using spectrometry methods to detect their radioactive emissions. In a new study examining the radionuclide content of Lead-Bismuth-eutectic (LBE) targets, scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute Villigen (PSI) found that some of the radionuclides do not necessarily remain dissolved in the irradiated targets. Instead, they can be depleted in the bulk LBE material and accumulate on the target's internal surfaces. The results improve our understanding of nuclear data related to the radionuclides stemming from high-power targets in spallation neutron sources. They contribute to improving the risk assessment of future high-power spallation neutron beam facilities including, among others, the risk of erroneous evaluation of radiation dose rates.
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EPL – Highlights from the previous volumes
EPL – Highlights from the previous volumes Expanding frontiers of cosmic-ray muon imaging
by Bikit Istvan et al.
On the dependency of friction on load: Theory and experiment
by Braun O.M. et al.
Stochastic thermodynamics of resetting
by Fuchs Jaco et al.
Unusual transport properties of the topological Dirac metal Na3Bi
by Xiong Jun et al.
EPL Highlights are published in the first issue of each volume, i.e. four times a year, as well as in Europhysics News (EPN).