The MEV project: design and testing of a new high-resolution telescope for Muography of Etna Volcano

The MEV project aims at developing a muon telescope expressly designed for the muography of Etna Volcano. In particular, one of the active craters in the summit area of the volcano would be a suitable target for this experiment. A muon tracking telescope with high imaging resolution was built and tested during 2017. The telescope is a tracker based on extruded scintillating bars with WLS fibres and featuring an innovative read-out architecture. It is composed of three XY planes with a sensitive area of \SI{1}{m^2}; the angular resolution does not exceeds \SI{0.4}{\milli\steradian} and the total angular aperture is about $\pm$\SI{45}{\degree}. A special effort concerned the design of mechanics and electronics in order to meet the requirements of a detector capable to work in a hostile environment such as the top of a tall volcano, at a far distance from any facility. The test phase started in January 2017 and ended successfully at the end of July 2017. An extinct volcanic crater (the Monti Rossi, in the village of Nicolosi, about 15km from Catania) is the target of the measurement. The detector acquired data for about 120 days and the preliminary results are reported in this work

Discriminant Analysis and Secondary-Beam Charge Recognition

The discriminant-analysis method has been applied to optimize the exotic-beam charge recognition in a projectile fragmentation experiment. The experiment was carried out at the GSI using the fragment separator (FRS) to produce and select the relativistic secondary beams, and the ALADIN setup to measure their fragmentation products following collisions with Sn target nuclei. The beams of neutron poor isotopes around 124La and 107Sn were selected to study the isospin dependence of the limiting temperature of heavy nuclei by comparing with results for stable 124Sn projectiles. A dedicated detector to measure the projectile charge upstream of the reaction target was not used, and alternative methods had to be developed. The presented method, based on the multivariate discriminant analysis, allowed to increase the efficacy of charge recognition up to about 90%, which was about 20% more than achieved with the simple scalar methods.Comment: 6 pages, 7 eps figures, elsart, submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth.

Neutron recognition in the LAND detector for large neutron multiplicity

The performance of the LAND neutron detector is studied. Using an event-mixing technique based on one-neutron data obtained in the S107 experiment at the GSI laboratory, we test the efficiency of various analytic tools used to determine the multiplicity and kinematic properties of detected neutrons. A new algorithm developed recently for recognizing neutron showers from spectator decays in the ALADIN experiment S254 is described in detail. Its performance is assessed in comparison with other methods. The properties of the observed neutron events are used to estimate the detection efficiency of LAND in this experiment.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Isospin dependent multifragmentation of relativistic projectiles

The N/Z dependence of projectile fragmentation at relativistic energies has been studied with the ALADIN forward spectrometer at the GSI Schwerionen Synchrotron (SIS). Stable and radioactive Sn and La beams with an incident energy of 600 MeV per nucleon have been used in order to explore a wide range of isotopic compositions. For the interpretation of the data, calculations with the statistical multifragmentation model for a properly chosen ensemble of excited sources were performed. The parameters of the ensemble, representing the variety of excited spectator nuclei expected in a participant-spectator scenario, are determined empirically by searching for an optimum reproduction of the measured fragment-charge distributions and correlations. An overall very good agreement is obtained. The possible modification of the liquid-drop parameters of the fragment description in the hot freeze-out environment is studied, and a significant reduction of the symmetry-term coefficient is found necessary to reproduce the mean neutron-to-proton ratios /Z and the isoscaling parameters of Z<=10 fragments. The calculations are, furthermore, used to address open questions regarding the modification of the surface-term coefficient at freeze-out, the N/Z dependence of the nuclear caloric curve, and the isotopic evolution of the spectator system between its formation during the initial cascade stage of the reaction and its subsequent breakup.Comment: 23 pages, 29 figures, published in Physical Review

RadioLab project: knowledge of radon gas in Italy

AbstractRadioLab is an Italian project, addressed to school-age people, and designed for the dissemination of scientific culture on the theme of environmental radioactivity, with particular regards to the importance of knowledge of radon gas exposure. The project is a nationwide initiative promoted by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics- INFN. First tool used by the project, and of immediate impact to assess the public awareness on radon, is the administration of the survey “do you know the radon gas?”. In the survey, together with the knowledge of radon and of its sources, information on personal, cultural and territorial details regarding the interviewees are also taken. Reasonably, the survey invests not only young people, but also their relatives, school workers and, gradually, the public. The survey is administrated during exhibitions or outreach events devoted to schools, but also open to the public. The survey is in dual form: printed and online. The online mode clearly leads RadioLab project even outside the school environment. Based on the results of the survey, several statistical analyses have been performed and many conclusions are drawn about the knowledge of the population on the radon risk. The RadioLab benefit and the requirement to carry on the project goals, spreading awareness of environmental radioactivity from radon, emerge. The dataset involves all twenty Italian regions and consists of 28,612 entries covering the 5-year period 2018–2022

Un’indagine PLS sulla formazione, supporto e monitoraggio delle attività dei tutor universitari

Si riportano i risultati di una indagine svolta nell’ambito dell’Azione 3 del Piano Nazionale delle Lauree Scientifiche sulle attività messe a punto dalle Università sulla formazione, supporto e monitoraggio delle attività dei tutor nell’ambito degli insegnamenti istituzionali del primo anno. L’indagine ha come obiettivo quello di mappare le attività di tutorato in relazione a: partecipazione studenti; tipo di attività (supporto alla disciplina, al metodo di studio, ecc.); modalità dell’attività (lavoro di gruppo, esercitazione, ecc.); coordinamento tra gli attori istituzionali (PLS, cds, ateneo); valutazione delle attività. Nel corso della comunicazione saranno presentati i risultati dell’indagine e discusse alcune proposte nate nell’ambito PNLS

Le questioni affrontate durante il convegno ``Quale didattica della fisica per formare gli insegnanti di scuola primaria?'' - Which kind of physics education for prospective primary teachers?

La Comunità Europea ha sottolineato che la formazione iniziale degli insegnanti di scuola primaria in ambito scientifico è una sfida per lo sviluppo: un compito nel nostro Paese assegnato all’università dal 2000 con gli insegnamenti istituzionali di didattica della fisica e laboratorio nei corsi di laurea in Scienze della Formazione Primaria. Il PLS-Fisica, coordinato da Josette Immè, ha posto sempre più attenzione alla ricerca didattica e ha guardato alla qualità anche nell’ambito dell’educazione scientifica di base. Il suo gruppo G6, coordinato da Marisa Michelini, ha approfondito la formazione degli insegnanti. Un’indagine sulla didattica della fisica nella formazione iniziale degli insegnanti di scuola primaria ha messo in luce una ricchezza straordinaria di impostazioni, strategie e metodi, ed un grande bisogno di confronto, effettuato in uno specifico Convegno. Questo fascicolo raccoglie le relazioni più significative selezionate e la sintesi della discussione nei gruppi del Convegno.The European Community has emphasized that the prospective primary teacher education in the scientific field is a challenge for development: a task in our country assigned to the university since from 2000 with the institutional courses of physics education and laboratory in the degree for Primary Teacher Education. The PLS-Physics, coordinated by Josette Immè, has paid more and more attention to educational research and focused to the quality in the field of basic science education too. Its G6 group, coordinated by Marisa Michelini, has deepened the teacher education. A survey on the teaching of physics education for prospective primary teachers has highlighted an extraordinary wealth of settings, strategies and methods, and a great need for comparison, carried out in a specific Conference. This dossier collects the most significant selected contributions and the summary of the discussion in the groups of the Conference