Students from Friuli-Venezia Giulia grapple with data from Cern

Three events organised to discover the secrets of high-energy physics:

26 February and 14 March at the University of Trieste and 11 April at the University of Udine

On Wednesday 26 February 2025, the first of two masterclasses organised by the Trieste INFN Section and the University of Trieste on the ALICE experiment (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) will take place in Trieste

Around 200 high school students from Friuli-Venezia Giulia are this year taking part in the International Masterclasses in Particle Physics, organised by the Trieste Section and the Udine Affiliated Group of the INFN National Institute of Nuclear Physics in close collaboration with the University of Trieste and the University of Udine.

Thanks to the International Masterclasses, the girls and boys, at the same time as their peers from other Italian locations or other countries around the world, will be able to gain first-hand experience of how scientific research works in large laboratories by analysing data from experiments at CERN in Geneva. Students will be accompanied by researchers on a journey to discover the properties of elementary particles and the secrets of CERN's LHC (Large Hadron Collider) accelerator, where, inside a 27 km tunnel 100 metres underground, particles collide at almost the speed of light.

It starts in Trieste on 26 February at 9.30 a.m. with the first of two masterclasses organised by the Trieste INFN Section and the University of Trieste on the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) experiment (26 February and 14 March 2025). While in Udine on 11 April there will be a masterclass on the ATLAS experiment, organised by INFN Gruppo Collegato di Udine and the University of Udine.

The days of the International Masterclasses include activities in the university lecture halls divided between seminars on the fundamental topics of particle physics and computer exercises on the data of some experiments at the CERN LHC accelerator in which the students will analyse the data themselves as if they were researchers. At the end of each day, just like in a true international research collaboration, the young people taking part in the masterclasses simultaneously in Italy and in other countries around the world will meet up in a video link with CERN.

The initiative, now in its 20th edition, is part of the International Masterclasses organised by IPPOG (International Particle Physics Outreach Group) and, in Italy, by INFN. The masterclasses take place simultaneously in 60 different countries, involve over 200 of the world's most prestigious research institutions and universities and more than 13,000 secondary school students. 

For the National Institute of Nuclear Physics this year, the locations of Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Cosenza, Florence, Genoa, Lecce, Milan Bicocca, Milan, Naples, Padua, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Pisa, Rome, Rome Tor Vergata, Rome Three, Salerno, Turin, Trieste, Trento and Udine, as well as the National Laboratories of Frascati (INFN - LNF) and the National Laboratories of Gran Sasso (INFN - LNGS) are present.