Sebastiano Francesco ALBERGO

last update: march 21 2020

Sebastiano Albergo is  full professor of Experimental Physics at the Catania University since  2005,  He obtained his PhD in Physics in 1988. In 1989 he was granted by Italian Physics Society. In 1991 he became permanent researcher in nuclear physics at the University of Catania, where he served later on as associated professor from 1999 to 2005. From 2001 to 2007  he was  member of the First Scientific Committee of  INFN, which defines the particle physics  program of INFN yearly. Starting from 2010 he was for six years the director of Centro Siciliano di Fisica Nucleare e Struttura della Materia. While from 2012  to 2016 he was member of the Senatus of Catania University. At the same university  he is now coordinator of  the Physics PhD school.

Regarding his research activity:

-       2000-2012 leader of  Catania CMS team

-       2013-2019 :  leader of Catania ELI/NP team

-       2013-2017:  leader of Catania Calocube team

-       2015:  leader of  Catania Classic team

-       dal 2018: leader of Catania  RD-FA team

-       dal 2020: leader of Catania DarkSide team

-      he is author of about  1000 papers, with h-index 102

An important part of my scientific career was devoted to nuclear physics and heavy ion physics (E896, TRANSPORT, EOS, EUROGAMMAS and other smaller collaborations), shortly described below:

• Study of the Nuclear Equation of State (EoS): in 1985 together with other authors I developed  a method for the determination of nuclear matter  temperatures, which was named “isotopic temperature”. Since then this method has been widely applied in nuclear multifragmentation studies. Isotopic temperature method was later on applied by myself in the context of EOS experiment (1991-1999), at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LNBL), to search for evidence of nuclear matter phase transition in heavy ion collision at energies of the projectile ranging from several hundred MeV/nucleon to order of GeV/nucleon. EOS Experiment setup was made of a large Time Projection Chamber, installed inside the HISS superconducting magnet, and a neutron spectrometer. The latter was developed in Catania by myself and a group of other colleagues.
• TRANSPORT experiment at LNBL (1989-1996): the TRANSPORT experiment measured several reaction cross sections produced by the collision of heavy ions on hydrogen. These cross sections had large astrophysical interest. The experiment was in fact aimed to calibrate nuclear interaction models used to study cosmic rays propagation in interstellar space. Within TRANSPORT collaboration I contributed to the design and to the construction of MUFFINS (Multi-Functional Neutron Spectrometer), used to measure neutron production cross section in heavy ion multi-fragmentation reactions on hydrogen target.
• E896 experiment at BNL (1993-1996): it was aimed to search the exotic strangelet particle H₀.  My research team in Catania realized an upgraded version of MUFFINS neutron spectrometer, which played a significant role, since neutron emission was predicted in final state of H₀ decay.  E896 increased by orders of magnitude the exclusion limit about H₀ existence.
• EUROGAMMAS/ELI-NP project (2013-2019): due to a wide range of innovative applications of monochromatic gamma-beams, which can be generated through Thomson scattering of photons on high energy electrons, I begun a collaboration within the european project ELI-NP. ELI-NP is a new large gamma facility to be realized at Margurele (Romania). Monochromatic gamma beam can open new frontiers in material non-destructive analysis and imaging, as well as in fundamental physics. I proposed a nuclear resonant monitoring system for the characterization of the gamma beam energy profile, which was approved and funded. The system has been realized and delivered to INFN, which is the head of the European consortium which will realize the facility.

Since 1994 I begun research in HEP experiments and in related R&D (CMS, RD48,  CALOCUBE, CLASSIC, RD-FA): 

• I was member of  CMS Collaboration from 1994 to 2017. I worked to the design and then to the construction of the full-silicon tracker detector. In the meantime I was strongly involved in the study of radiation damage effects on silicon detectors. I also joined the RD48 Collaboration at CERN, aimed to search for radiation-hard silicon detector, participating to several irradiation beam tests at CERN, ENEA and LNS. In the latter I used an original  method for the fluence measurement. I was coordinator the Catania production center of tracker microstrip modules, which produced several hundreds modules. For half of my whole participation time I leaded the Catania CMS group, which  contributed to searches for SUSY and beyond-standard-model signals, including dark matter searches too.

• CALOCUBE collaboration (2014-2017): CALOCUBE is an R&D project funded through a competitive call of CSN5-INFN. It was devoted the development of high acceptance homogeneous calorimetry for cosmic ray experiment in space. I was responsible of the Catania/Messina unit and coordinator of WP5 (beam test) program. I was also in charge for the development of SiC UV-photosensors, from which both the design and the production of large-area shottky photodiodes arised. I organized several beam tests at CERN, LNF, LNS.

• CLASSIC and RD-FA are two R&D project of INFN for which I developed and tested a  SiC APD.    SiC   technology is less mature than silicon one and there are very few avalanche diodes developed so far. Aim of CLASSIC project was to look for UV-sensor applications to innovative PET imaging. RD-FA aims to develop next generation detectors for future accelerators.

A chapter apart has to be devoted to my most recent participation to a scientific experiment, which represents the natural continuation of long lasted search of dark matter signals and dark matter  candidates in CMS experiment at LHC. In fact since july 2019 I have joined the DarkSide experiment  at Gran Sasso National Laboratory  in order to extend my preceding dark matter searches at LHC also to a direct  experiment. Within DarkSide I have addressed my activity to the ReD project, about recoil directionality and about signal processing at the low-mass discovery limit.

- Chair of Catania Physics PhD

- member of University Research Committee

- Chair of Department Research Committee