Particle theory institute

A stone’s throw from the house where Galileo lived and died in Arcetri, overlooking Florence, Italy, an institute named for the scientist and devoted to theoretical physics was inaugurated in September.

In holding extended topical work-shops, the Galileo Galilei Institute is modeled on the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California. But the new institute has a loose organizational structure with no permanent staff. Its cofounding organizations, the INFN (Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics) and the University of Florence, pay the bills and take care of the institute’s administration, with external advisory bodies overseeing the selection of workshop topics. Roberto Casalbuoni, a scientific coordinator for the institute, says it’s Europe’s “first institute specializing in fundamental interactions.”

A workshop next spring will focus on the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, followed in the fall by a workshop on astroparticle physics and cosmology. Participation by established scientists and graduate students is by invitation only.