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The Strange Case Of The Monotonous Running Average

These days I am putting the finishing touches on a hybrid algorithm that optimizes a system (a...

Turning 60

Strange how time goes by. And strange I would say that, since I know time does not flow, it is...

On The Illusion Of Time And The Strange Economy Of Existence

I recently listened again to Richard Feynman explaining why the flowing of time is probably an...

RIP - Hans Jensen

Today I was saddened to hear of the passing of Hans Jensen, a physicist and former colleague in...

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Tommaso DorigoRSS Feed of this column.

Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS and the SWGO experiments. He is the president of the Read More »

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ATLAS Pictures Colour Flow Between Quarks

ATLAS Pictures Colour Flow Between Quarks

Jun 19 2015 | comment(s)

In 1992 I started working at my undergraduate thesis, the search for all-hadronic top quark pairs in CDF data. The CDF experiment was just starting to collect proton-antiproton collision data with the brand-new silicon vertex detector in what was called Run 1a, which ended in 1993 and produced the data on which the first evidence claim of top quarks was based. But I was still working on the Run 0 data: 4 inverse picobarns of collisions -the very first collisions at the unprecedented energy of 1.8 TeV. And I was not alone: many analyses of those data were still in full swing.
ATLAS Pictures Colour Flow Between Quarks

ATLAS Pictures Colour Flow Between Quarks

Jun 19 2015 | comment(s)

In 1992 I started working at my undergraduate thesis, the search for all-hadronic top quark pairs in CDF data. The CDF experiment was just starting to collect proton-antiproton collision data with the brand-new silicon vertex detector in what was called Run 1a, which ended in 1993 and produced the data on which the first evidence claim of top quarks was based. But I was still working on the Run 0 data: 4 inverse picobarns of collisions -the very first collisions at the unprecedented energy of 1.8 TeV. And I was not alone: many analyses of those data were still in full swing.
The ATLAS 2-TeV ZZ Signal Might Be A Techni-Rho

The ATLAS 2-TeV ZZ Signal Might Be A Techni-Rho

Jun 14 2015 | comment(s)

I apologize to you, dear reader, for not having written yet about the 2.5 standard deviation excess that the ATLAS collaboration has recently found in diboson final states at 2 TeV in the 2012 8-TeV data. I thought it was interesting, but for some reason the distributions published by the experiment did not stimulate my fantasy enough to trigger an article here. Or maybe, it was because they got published at a time when I had too much on my plate to deal with it...

Those Three Higgs Events Piling Up At 1.8 TeV

Those Three Higgs Events Piling Up At 1.8 TeV

Jun 09 2015 | comment(s)

Among the many things that CMS and ATLAS physicists are looking forward to checking up, using the data that the LHC is starting to deliver from 13 TeV proton-proton collisions, one is the WH resonance signal that CMS found in a recent analysis. Mind you, "signal" here is a misnomer: what was seen was most probably a insignificant fluctuation of the background; yet we must keep our mind open to interpretation changes.

The search I am talking about is one CMS did for boosted Higgs bosons recoiling against boosted W bosons, in a "back-to-back" topology (paper is here).
Green Rays: Rare, From The Sun; And From The Moon ?

Green Rays: Rare, From The Sun; And From The Moon ?

Jun 05 2015 | comment(s)

The light we receive from the sun is composed of all visible frequencies, among others, and it therefore appears white to our natural detection system - the human eye. Apparently, evolution caused us to develop a vision which works best at the center of the frequency spectrum emitted by the Sun. 

That notwithstanding, I am sure that if you ask the question "what colour is the Sun" to the average Joe, you will get an equal share of "white" and "yellow", and maybe some "red" answers. Besides, who among us has never painted a red Sun in a blue sky as a child ? 
Highlights Of The INFN School Of Statistics For Physicists

Highlights Of The INFN School Of Statistics For Physicists

May 29 2015 | comment(s)

The second infn school of statistics took place this week in the nice "green island" of Ischia, in the gulf of Naples, Italy. Organized by the INFN section of Naples, the school aims at training Ph.D. students and post-graduates in the foundations and the applications of the statistical methods most used nowadays in particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.