IGFAE hosts the main meeting of the Spanish particle physics community in Santiago

The headquarters of the Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías, a joint center of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the Xunta de Galicia, will host the 52nd edition of the International Meeting on Fundamental Physics from 7 to 10 October. Around 100 members of the international particle physics community are expected to attend to the  Spanish Symposium on high energy particle physics with the longest tradition, since its creation in 1973. This is the third time in half a century that Galicia has hosted the meeting, following the 1998 edition on the island of A Toxa and the 2007 edition, also in Santiago de Compostela.

The meeting comes at a key moment for the discipline, as the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) is currently being updated, which will guide the way for the coming decades, marked in particular by the project to build a new accelerator at CERN. Thus, the first day of the symposium in Santiago will focus on the conclusions of the ESPP meeting held in June in Venice, with an emphasis on the role that the Spanish scientific community will play in it.

Over the next few days, more than 20 lectures are planned, given by researchers from institutions in various countries, such as Great Britain, Germany, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy, and Canada, together with members of the main Spanish research centers in this field.

“This is a great opportunity to position our institute as a central player in particle physics in Spain,” say Paula Álvarez Cartelle and Xabier Cid, IGFAE researchers and coordinators of the local organizing committee, together with Jaime Álvarez, Néstor Armesto, Juan Calderón, Elena González, and José Ángel Hernando, also members of IGFAE.

“The high caliber of the speakers and the wide range of topics covered by the meeting make this conference one of the most important events we have held in recent years at IGFAE. We also have the special opportunity to use our new headquarters for the first time to organize an event of this nature,” Paula Álvarez and Xabier Cid add.

About IGFAE

The Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías was founded in 1999 with the aim of coordinating and promoting scientific and technical research in the fields of High Energy, Particle and Nuclear Physics, and related areas such as Astrophysics, Medical Physics and Instrumentation. It hosts around 140 people who participate in large experimental facilities such as CERN, the Pierre Auger Observatory, LIGO, and GSI/FAIR, among others.

The center has been recognized twice (in 2017 and 2023) as a María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence by the Spanish Government’s State Research Agency. It is also part of the CIGUS network of the Regional Government of Galicia, which accredits the quality and impact of its research. It is co-financed by the European Union through the Galicia Feder 2021-2027 Program.