Monthly Meeting

Location: Streamed online.

The origin of extraterrestrial energetic particles (usually referred to as “cosmic rays”) has puzzled scientists since the pioneering discovery by Victor Hess in 1912. The debate over their origin has involved prominent physicists (Nobel laureates Compton, Millikan, Jeans, Fermi, among others) and has stretched over more than a century. Only in the last few years a combination of novel high-energy telescopes and unprecedented supercomputer simulations allowed us to associate Galactic cosmic rays to supernova remnants, the relic of powerful stellar explosions. Nevertheless, the quest for unveiling the origin of the highest-energy cosmic rays, which are of extra-galactic origin, is still ongoing and represents one of the greatest challenges in modern Astrophysics.

Dr. Caprioli is a theoretical astrophysicists, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and in the E. Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago since 2016. He received his PhD in 2009 from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy) and was a post-doc at INAF-Florence (Italy) and Princeton University (USA). He is the recipient of the Shakti P. Duggal Award (2015) and of the Rita Levi Montalcini Fellowship (2014) for young Researchers.

This event is open to the public and free of charge.