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On A Roll

What? Another boring chess game?Buzz off, this is my blog, and if I feel like posting a chess game...

When The Attack Plays Itself

After a very intense day at work, I sought some relaxation in online blitz chess today. And the...

Toponium Found By CMS!

The highest-mass subnuclear particle ever observed used to the the top quark. Measured for the...

The Problem With Peer Review

In a world where misinformation, voluntary or accidental, reigns supreme; in a world where lies...

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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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Come And Do Research In Particle Physics With Machine Learning In Padova!

Come And Do Research In Particle Physics With Machine Learning In Padova!

Sep 28 2021 | comment(s)

I used some spare research funds to open a six-months internship to help my research group in Padova, and the call is open for applications at this site (the second in the list right now, the number is #23584). So here I wish to answer a few questions from potential applicants, namely:
1) Can I apply? 
2) When is the call deadline?
3) What is the salary?
4) What is the purpose of the position? What can I expect to gain from it?

5) What will I be doing if I get selected? 


Answers:
Six-muon Events Probe Proton Collision Dynamics

Six-muon Events Probe Proton Collision Dynamics

Sep 21 2021 | comment(s)

When you collide particles made up of quarks and gluons, such as the protons accelerated by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, you mostly expect particles made of quarks and gluons to emerge. That is because quarks and gluons most of the times interact by the strong interaction, which is itself mediated by the exchange of gluons; and the strong interaction knows nothing about all the other matter and interaction fields.
So how do you get energetic electrons, muons, photons, and weak bosons from a LHC collision? Well, the electroweak interaction which may produce these particles does play in, but its contribution is, er, weaker, by definition. 

Gimme all 'em leptons!
Interna

Interna

Sep 15 2021 | comment(s)

In the ancient past, when a good portion of blog followers were interested in the writers' lives more than in actual content, I used to write a lot more about private issues here. I don't do that so often any more mainly because I think the interest of readers has shifted - or better, the composition of readers has changed. But I am not less keen to discuss private issues today than I was ten years ago. Privacy is not among the priorities of a blogger true to him- or herself anyway, at least from my point of view.
So, what am I up to these days? I thought I could give you some update. Maybe in one of my future posts I will also summarize the various research activities I am engaged in as of late, but let's keep this out of today's post. 
Differentiable Programming For Experimental Design

Differentiable Programming For Experimental Design

Sep 06 2021 | comment(s)

Today I am giving the opening speech at a workshop with the same title of this post. The workshop takes place at the Center for Particle Physics and Phenomenology of Université catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, and it is in a mixed formula - we will have 33 in-person attendees and 72 more attending by videolink. 
The workshop is organized by the MODE collaboration, which I lead. It is a small group of physicists and computer scientists from 10 institutions in Europe and America, who have realized how today's deep learning technology allows us to raise the bar of our optimization tasks - we are now targeting the full optimization of the design of some of the most complex instruments ever built by humankind, particle detectors.
How To Read A Graph - Part 2

How To Read A Graph - Part 2

Aug 11 2021 | comment(s)

In a recent post I discussed how even the simplest kind of data display graph - the histogram - can sometimes confuse and be misinterpreted. Which is a total howler, as graphs are supposedly means of clarification and immediate, at-a-glance, interpretation of data summaries.
Why The New Tcc+ Tetraquark Will Revolutionize Physics

Why The New Tcc+ Tetraquark Will Revolutionize Physics

Aug 07 2021 | comment(s)

The discovery of a new exotic hadron, named T_cc+,  was announced by the LHCb Collaboration a little over a week ago. Unlike some previous discoveries of other resonances by the LHC experiments (dozens have been announced since 2010 by LHCb, and to a lesser extent by CMS and ATLAS) the one of the T_cc+ is is very significant and exciting, and it promises to advance our understanding of low-energy QCD, with repercussions across the board.