EUNPC 2018: over 200 physicists met in Bologna to discuss nuclear physics from meV to TeV

Group photo of the EUNPC 2018 participants.

The fourth edition of the European Nuclear Physics Conference (EUNPC 2018) has been held in Bologna (Italy), from the 2nd to the 7th of September 2018. The previous editions were hosted in Bochum (De) in 2009, Bucharest (Ro) in 2012, and in Groningen (Nl) in 2015. More than 230 participants, from 27 different countries, joined the conference, attracted by a broad and comprehensive scientific program.

The conference kick-off was taken on Sunday, 2nd September, by the masterclasses. G. Martinez Pinedo, A. Görgen and P. D'Avanzo gave lectures on the intersection between nuclear physics and the gravitational wave observation. More than 40 PhD students had the opportunity to learn more on the r-process and the related heavy element production during the neutron star merger scenario and to go deeper into the implications of this major discovery on the nuclear astrophysics.

The plenary sessions were scheduled in the morning: 25 speakers covered a wide range of topics from heavy ion physics to hadron and nuclear structure, from nuclear physics applications to nuclear astrophysics. A special session dedicated to the "Future facilities in construction" was organized by A. Bracco and F. Azaiez: The Fair Director (P. Giubellino), the DUBNA Deputy-Director (M. Itkis) and the EURISOL Steering Committee chair (M. Lewitowicz) spoke on the future plans of their research facilities and, at the end of the session, joined a round table.

The opening ceremony took place on 3rd September: after a short introduction by the co-chairs of the conference local organizing committee (E. Scapparone and M. Taiuti), the participants were welcomed by the INFN-Bologna Director (G. Bruni), by the Italian Physical Society President (L.Cifarelli), by A. Zoccoli (INFN executive board member) and by the Chair of the European Physical Society (EPS) Nuclear Physics Board, N. Bianchi. The first plenary session focused on Heavy ions and was chaired by R. Nania and by A. Ricci, 1989-1991 EPS President: before the start of the session he paid tribute to P. Bortignon, who passed away a few days before the start of EUNPC 2018. The Lise Meitner Prize was awarded by the EPS Nuclear Physics Board chair, N. Bianchi: the winners of the 2018 Prize edition were P. Ring (Munich Technical University) and P. Schuck (Institut de Physique Nucleaire, Orsay).

The parallel sessions were scheduled in the afternoon. Seventeen conveners selected more than 140 abstracts, to prepare a rich program, split in nine parallel sessions:

– Accelerators and Instrumentation
– Astroparticle Physics
– Few body
– Fundamental Symmetries
– Hadron structure, spectroscopy and dynamics
– Heavy Ion collisions and QCD phases
– Nuclear Astrophysics
– Nuclear Physics Applications
– Nuclear Structure and Dynamics. 

Every afternoon (but on Wednesday, when participants had the possibility to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Ravenna monuments) four parallel sessions were run.

On Friday, 7th September, the last day of the conference, A. Zichichi, EPS President from 1978 to 1980, gave a talk on "EPS: roots and future", reminding the audience of the role of science in the culture of our time and the need for a project on Science for Peace. Shortly after, N. Bianchi awarded the EPS PhD best thesis prize to R.F.G. Ruiz (KU, Lueven, Belgium), C.G. Bruno (University of Edinburgh, UK) and J.L.R. Sánchez (Univ. Santiago del Compostela, Spain). F. Azaiez announced that the IBA prize 2018 was awarded to Habib Zaidi, for his contributions on the quantitative multimodality molecular imaging (PET/CT and PET/MRI).

The poster exhibition during the conference gave the possibility to the younger participants to present their research work: more than 20 posters were shown, and the three best posters were awarded with a prize supported by the NuPECC organization. Each conference participant had the possibility to express her/his vote for the best poster. M. Lewitowicz (NuPECC chair) and A. Bracco (NuPECC former chair) awarded N. Marchini (Università di Firenze and INFN-Firenze), A. Manna (Università di Bologna and INFN-Bologna) and M. Franchini (Università di Bologna and INFN-Bologna). The EUNPC 2018 proceedings will be published in Il Nuovo Cimento, by the Italian Physical Society. This edition will be also available in electronic version in open access.

The next EUNPC edition will be held in 2021: the call for bids to host EUNPC2021 will be out in Spring 2019 on e-EPS.