Talks

English version. Italian version below:

The event is aimed at the Italian community in Geneva and CERN community, CERN Alumni and Retirees, therefore physical attendance will require having a valid CERN access card. 

CERN Alumni should use this form to request CERN access cards.

Registration for external participants (Dante Alighieri members) is available at the bottom of this page.

The author of the new book "I conquistatori dell'invisibile: Amaldi, Rubbia e i geni italiani del CERN" will give a talk at the CERN Library co organized with Dante Alighieri Geneva. The talk will be held in Italian.

The CERN laboratory in Geneva, the European center for nuclear research, is not only the world's leading institution for investigating the mysteries of the atom, but also the result of one of Europe's most visionary and courageous scientific ventures, inspired by two distinguished scientists: the Italian Edoardo Amaldi and the French Pierre Auger.

By combining intellectual and material resources, scientists have been able to tackle the mysteries of the origins of the universe using large particle accelerators that would otherwise have been impossible to build, reconstructing its earliest moments. Italian physicists and engineers have played a leading role in this extraordinary adventure.

This book tells their stories alongside the evolution of particle physics, to which they made outstanding contributions, culminating in Carlo Rubbia's Nobel Prize. Distinguished directors such as Luciano Maiani and Fabiola Gianotti have also guided CERN, fostering its growth and ensuring a bright future.

The event will be followed by a Q&A and signing sessions. The book is available from the CERN Library & Bookshop.

About the author: 

Giovanni Caprara is the science editor of Corriere della Sera, professor of Space Exploration at the Politecnico di Milano, and a member of the History Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics. He is the author of numerous publications on the history of science and space, translated across Europe, the United States, and China.

In 2010, he received the European Science Writers Award from the Euroscience Foundation, and in 2016 the Science Communication Prize from the Società Italiana di Fisica. The International Astronomical Union named asteroid 10928 Caprara in his honour. He is also president of UGIS (Italian Union of Scientific Journalists) and, since 2021, scientific director of the Padua Festival of Science and Innovation.

Fabiola Gianotti: particle physicist, CERN Director-General 2016-2025. Over the course of a 30-year career at CERN, Fabiola Gianotti has made significant contributions to several of the laboratory's experiments. As spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, she led the collaboration during the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. She later became the first CERN Director-General appointed for two full terms. She has received 16 honorary degrees from universities around the world and numerous awards, including the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (shared), the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society (shared), and the Tate Medal for International Leadership from the American Institute of Physics. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of the top five 'Person of the Year.'

Ugo Amaldi joined CERN as a fellow in September 1961. He then spent 10 years at the Italian health institute Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, performing experiments in nuclear and particle physics alongside radiation physics and radiotherapy. Returning to CERN, he helped to discover the rise of the proton–proton cross-section with the energy at the Intersecting Storage Rings, and later led the DELPHI collaboration at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP). In the early 1990s, he founded the TERA Foundation, introducing hadron therapy to Italy. Today, he continues to promote the use of accelerators in cancer treatment and is president emeritus of the National Centre for Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO) in Pavia.

Paola Catapano (moderator): Deputy Group Leader of Education Communication and Outreach at CERN.
Paola Catapano is a science communicator and a señor staff at CERN. A graduate in conference interpreting from the University of Trieste, she joined CERN in 1990 as assistant to Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia. She later earned a Master's in Science Journalism at SISSA Trieste.

Author and presenter of over 40 documentaries for RAI, she has chronicled the LHC journey and reported from Antarctica, the Arctic, the Amazon, and space with the European Space Agency. Her work brings science to life through groundbreaking media formats and global outreach.

Italian version:

L'evento è rivolto alla comunità italiana a Ginevra, alla comunità del CERN, agli Alumni e ai Pensionati del CERN e ai soci della Società Dante Alighieri Genève (SDA); pertanto, per partecipare in presenza sarà necessario disporre di una tessera di accesso al CERN valida.
Gli Alumni del CERN e i soci della SDA Genève dovranno utilizzare questo modulo per richiedere la tessera di accesso.

Giovanni Caprara, autore del nuovo libro "I conquistatori dell'invisibile: Amaldi, Rubbia e i geni italiani del CERN" terrà una conferenza presso la Biblioteca del CERN. Organizzata in collaborazione con la SDA di Ginevra, la conferenza sarà in lingua italiana.

Il laboratorio del CERN di Ginevra, centro europeo per la ricerca nucleare, non è soltanto la più importante istituzione al mondo per lo studio dei misteri dell'atomo, ma rappresenta anche il risultato di una delle imprese scientifiche europee più visionarie e coraggiose, ispirata da due illustri scienziati, l'italiano Edoardo Amaldi e il francese Pierre Auger.

Unendo importanti risorse intellettuali e materiali, gli scienziati sono riusciti a studiare i misteri dell'origine dell'universo grazie a grandi acceleratori di particelle, in grado di riprodurre situazioni simili ai primissimi istanti della sua creazione. In questa straordinaria avventura, fisici e ingegneri italiani hanno avuto un ruolo di primo piano.

Questo libro racconta le loro storie ripercorrendo l'evoluzione della fisica delle particelle, alla quale gli italiani hanno dato contributi eccezionali, culminati con il Premio Nobel assegnato a Carlo Rubbia. Direttori illustri come Luciano Maiani e Fabiola Gianotti hanno inoltre guidato il CERN, favorendone la crescita e assicurandogli un futuro luminoso.

La presentazione del libro sarà seguita da una discussione e dal firmacopie con l'autore. Il libro è disponibile presso la Library & Bookshop del CERN.

Informazioni sull'autore:

Giovanni Caprara è editorialista scientifico del Corriere della Sera, professore di Esplorazione Spaziale al Politecnico di Milano e membro del Comitato di Storia dell'Accademia Internazionale di Astonautica. È autore di numerose pubblicazioni sulla storia della scienza e dello spazio, tradotte in Europa, negli Stati Uniti e in Cina.

Nel 2010 ha ricevuto l'European Science Writers Award della Euroscience Foundation e, nel 2016, il Premio per la Comunicazione Scientifica della Società Italiana di Fisica. In suo onore l'International Astronomical Union ha dato il nome Caprara all'asteroide 10928. È inoltre presidente dell'UGIS e, dal 2021, direttore scientifico del Festival della Scienza e dell'Innovazione di Padova.

Fabiola Gianotti, fisica delle particelle, Direttrice Generale del CERN dal 2016 al 2025

Nel corso di una carriera trentennale al CERN, Fabiola Gianotti ha dato contributi significativi a diversi esperimenti del laboratorio. In qualità di responsabile dell'esperimento ATLAS presso il CERN, ha guidato la collaborazione durante la scoperta del Bosone di Higgs nel 2012. In seguito è diventata la prima donna ad essere nominata Direttrice Generale del CERN e, successivamente, la prima persona a svolgere questo incarico per due mandati completi.

Ha ricevuto 16 lauree honoris causa da università di tutto il mondo e numerosi riconoscimenti, tra cui lo Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (condiviso), il Premio Enrico Fermi (condiviso) e la Tate Medal for International Leadership da parte dell'American Institute of Phycics. Nel 2012, la rivista Time l'ha inserita tra le cinque personalità candidate al titolo di "Person of the Year".

Ugo Amaldi ha iniziato la sua attività al CERN come borsista nel settembre del 1961. In seguito ha trascorso dieci anni presso l'Istituto Superiore di Sanità di Roma, dove ha svolto esperimenti di fisica nucleare e delle particelle, occupandosi anche di fisica delle radiazioni e radioterapia.

Tornato al CERN, ha contribuito alla scoperta dell'aumento della sezione d'urto protone-protone con l'energia presso gli Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) e successivamente ha guidato la collaborazione DELPHI al Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP).

All'inizio degli anni Novanta ha fondato la Fondazione TERA, introducendo la terapia adronica in Italia. Oggi continua a promuovere l'impiego degli acceleratori nel trattamento dei tumori ed è presidente emerito del Centro Nazionale di Adroterapia Oncologica (CNAO) di Pavia.

Paola Catapano, Vice Responsabile del gruppo Formazione, Comunicazione e Divulgazione del CERN.
Paola Catapano è una divulgatrice scientifica e membro senior del CERN. Laureata in Interpretazione di conferenza presso l'Università di Trieste, è entrata al CERN nel 1990 come assistente del premio Nobel Carlo Rubbia. Successivamente ha conseguito un Master in Giornalismo Scientifico presso la SISSA di Trieste.

Autrice e conduttrice di oltre 40 documentari per la RAI, ha raccontato il percorso del Large Hadron Collider (LHC) e realizzato reportage sull'Antartide, sull'Artico, sull'Amazzonia e sullo spazio insieme all'European Space Agency. Il suo lavoro valorizza la scienza attraverso format di comunicazione all'avanguardia e iniziative di divulgazione internazionale.

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I will overview recent advances in modeling of the high-redshift tracers, such as the Lyman-alpha forest, Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies, and Lyman-break galaxies at the field level using large-scale structure effective field theory. I will then discuss various new opportunities that this modeling offers, including generation of high-quality mock catalogs and simulation-based priors for analyses of DESI-II and Spec-S5 data.

Peculiar velocities of matter tracers, arising from gravitational infall into large-scale structures, can be used to determine the growth rate of cosmic structure, $f\sigma_8$,providing a direct test of General Relativity. Measurements of velocity fields therefore constitute an important probe of the standard cosmological model. In this talk, I will present our methodology based on the *Bayesian Origin Reconstruction from Galaxies* (BORG) framework, a probabilistic forward-modeling approach designed to infer both the initial conditions and the late-time large-scale structures of the Universe. This framework jointly infers the density and peculiar velocity fields. We explore the application of this approach to Type Ia supernovae in order to fully exploit the rich low-redshift ($z<0.1$) supernova dataset provided by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). Accurate measurements of $f\sigma_8$ at low redshift are particularly informative for tests of gravity, as this is the regime where the effects of cosmic expansion are least dominant. I will present growth rate results from mock catalogues generated within the BORG framework and by the ZTF collaboration. BORG-generated mocks demonstrate accurate recovery of the underlying velocity field and cosmological parameters, while applications to ZTF mock catalogues represent a first step toward a full field-level analysis of peculiar velocities with real supernova samples.

I will present a Bayesian hierarchical field-level inference framework for the Local Group and its immediate cosmological environment. ΛCDM initial conditions are conditioned on observational constraints on the masses, relative position, and velocities of the Milky Way and M31 haloes, and on the surrounding velocity field traced by isolated galaxies within 5 Mpc. This yields statistically representative realizations of the local matter distribution that simultaneously reproduce the Local Group system and its surrounding flow. I will describe this multi-resolution inference framework and show that, within a standard ΛCDM cosmology, these data require a strongly flattened mass distribution around the Local Group, aligned with the Local Sheet and bordered by underdense regions above and below the plane. In this geometry, the quiet Hubble flow with respect to the Local Group is consistent with the dynamical mass of the Milky Way-M31 system, resolving a long-standing tension in spherical models and showing that light traces mass in our neighbourhood on these scales.

Traditional cosmological analyses describe ensemble-averaged properties of structure formation. Bayesian field-level inference offers a fundamentally different capability: by constructing posterior ensembles of initial conditions directly constrained by galaxy survey data, one recovers physically consistent realizations of the specific Universe we inhabit. This eliminates cosmic variance as a systematic and turns individual structures into controlled tests of physical models, a mode of inference unavailable to any statistical approach. I will present the Manticore project as a large-scale demonstration of this capability, spanning from methodology to concrete scientific consequences. The Manticore project applies this framework to two complementary datasets. Constrained by the all-sky 2MASS galaxy catalogue, the local reconstruction recovers the three-dimensional matter and velocity distribution within 200 Mpc, achieving the highest Bayesian evidence for the peculiar velocity field across five independent datasets and robustly identifying fourteen nearby galaxy clusters. Constrained by the combined SDSS and BOSS spectroscopic surveys, the reconstruction extends to a (4 h⁻¹ Gpc)³ volume at ∼4 h⁻¹ Mpc resolution, validated against observations withheld from the inference: a cross-correlation with Planck CMB lensing and a kinetic SZ detection from velocity-weighted cluster stacking. Having accurate, uncertainty-quantified models of the local density and velocity fields opens new avenues for precision cosmology. Peculiar velocity corrections are a dominant systematic in local H₀ measurements; replacing standard linear reconstructions with the Manticore velocity posterior in a SN-free Cepheid distance ladder analysis yields H₀ = 71.1 ± 1.4 km/s/Mpc with an 18% uncertainty reduction. The reconstructed density field further reveals that SN Ia rates in nearby superclusters exceed expectations from matter overdensities alone by factors of two to five, indicating that the local large-scale structure introduces correlated systematics into SN cosmology samples that standard analyses do not capture. Finally, constrained hydrodynamical simulations of individual nearby galaxy clusters, confronted against X-ray and SZ observations, expose failures in AGN feedback models that population-level statistics cannot detect. Together, these results illustrate what becomes possible when field-level inference is pushed beyond parameter estimation toward direct confrontation with the observed Universe, and outline an emerging programme for jointly constraining cosmology and astrophysical processes within a single coherent reconstruction.

We present a field-level framework to emulate the effects of extra fundamental forces on the cosmic web. This approach is designed to enable field-level inference with data from Stage IV cosmological surveys. Building on the reaction method, which models the nonlinear matter power spectrum in modified gravity as corrections to a "pseudo'' $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, we extend the method to full field-level predictions by applying it to the output of N-body simulations, including both positions and velocities. Our neural network predicts the field-level correction ("reaction'') to a pseudo$\Lambda$CDM simulation whose linear clustering matches that of the target. The emulator achieves sub-percent accuracy across a broad range of summary statistics, including 0.4% agreement in the matter power spectrum at scales k < 1 Mpc/h, and 2% accuracy in redshift-space distortion multipoles at k < 0.3 Mpc/h. We also validate the emulator against N-body simulations with increased force resolution and time steps, confirming the robustness of its performance. These results demonstrate that our framework is a practical and reliable tool for incorporating screened modified gravity models into field-level cosmological inference, enabling stringent tests of extra fundamental forces at cosmological scales.

Cosmological studies with surveys such as DESI, Roman and Euclid will be most powerful if they can exploit the rich information on small, nonlinear scales, which are often removed by conservative cuts due to the difficulty of robustly modelling baryonic physics. We present an accelerated forward-modelling framework aimed at enabling simulation based inference (SBI) while marginalizing over baryonic modelling uncertainties. Or approach learns the mapping from dark matter structure to galaxies directly from hydrodynamical simulations, which provide the most physically complete models of structure formation and feedback currently available. Leveraging simulation suites such as CAMELS that span cosmological and astrophysical parameters as well as multiple subgrid physics models, we seek to generate diverse mock realisations that support cosmological inference while accounting for baryonic systematics. We train a diffusion-based generative model on paired N-body and hydrodynamical simulations to rapidly produce galaxy count fields, with the broader framework designed to extend to realistic galaxy catalogs that include the observables needed for survey-style selection, including broad-band photometry in relevant filters. Although current hydrodynamical training volumes are smaller than survey volumes, the trained model is fully convolutional and can be applied efficiently to much larger volumes needed for analyses and covariance estimation, establishing a promising forward-modelling foundation for SBI with observations.

Simulating inflation is emerging as a powerful technique for studying inflationary phenomenology beyond the standard paradigm of single-field, slow-roll, and perturbative dynamics. In this talk, I will present recent results from lattice simulations of axion-gauge inflationary models that exhibit a rich phenomenology, including an enhanced small-scale power spectrum, a blue-tilted equilateral-peaked, but ultimately non-separable, bispectrum, and higher-order correlation functions that violate parity. I will also present new results characterizing the CMB power spectrum and bispectrum signatures of these models. The output of our simulations consists of realizations of the primordial curvature field imbued with this nontrivial hierarchy of N-point statistics. Crucially, such realizations cannot be generated with standard techniques for primordial non-Gaussian initial conditions, making our approach essential for comprehensive analysis using field-level and simulation-based inference. Using the output of our inflation simulations as initial conditions for N-body simulations, we effectively simulate the entire history of the universe from inflation to late-time large-scale structure, characterizing the observable predictions of axion-gauge inflation for galaxy surveys. These results establish simulating inflation as an indispensable tool for broadening the space of testable early-universe theories.