Final Report Summary - EENP2 (EUROPE EGYPT NETWORK FOR PARTICLE PHYSICS)
The international Research Staff Exchange program Egypt Europe Network for Particle Physics (EENP2) (http://eenp2.ba.infn.it/) under the Seventh Framework Programme “Marie Curie Action” started on January 2013 and ended in December 2016. The project had he main objective to enhance scientific collaboration in the framework of particle physics between EU member state institutions and a network of Egyptian Universities. It was focused on the study of new particles production at the CERN CMS experiment in operation at Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the development of frontier particle detector technologies and the implementation of up-to-date GRID computing infrastructures. Besides its scientific scopes, EENP2 had the objective to train young Egyptian scientists, to disseminate particle physics concepts and technologies, to reinforce the Europe-Egypt scientific collaboration. Ultimate objective was the development of an Egyptian scientific network of expertise to consolidate locally basic science research infrastructures and related technological applications.
The project was coordinated by two established member states organizations, Politecnico di Bari, Italy (POLIBA) and Ecole Polytechnique, France (ECOLE). Important public Egyptian universities, Helwan, Cairo and Ain Shams were active part of the network.
The following institutes participated to the project:
Physics Department at Politecnico di Bari, Italy (POLIBA)
Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet (LLR) at Ecole Polytechnique, France (ECOLE)
Physics Department at Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt (HELWAN)
Computing Eng. Department at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt (CAIRO)
Physics Department at Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt (AINSHAM)
The EENP2 studies covered a wide range of fields, spanning from phenomenological particle physics investigation to detector and computing technologies. It was a great circumstance the discovered on 2012 of the Higgs boson, since an important scope of the EENP2 scientific program was about the study of its properties. EENP2 offered a unique possibility to many Egyptian scientists to collaborate in one of the most fascinating epochal discovery in particle physics and to contribute to set the Higgs proprieties with high precision. The research work was also extended to the investigation of Super Symmetric extensions of the Standard Model through the search of new particles besides the Higgs boson. The study contributed to set new limits to the existence of those particles.
In parallel, more technological oriented activities were developed in the field of particles detectors, also with the ultimate scope to build awareness of the new key enabling technologies and setup local laboratory infrastructures. Both gaseous and silicon detector developments were addressed. In the first case, Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) and Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) instruments were studied in the contest of the upgrade of the CERN CMS experiment. As results, new detector configurations were proposed and tested for validation with particle beams and radioactive sources. The Helwan Physics Department instrumented an import laboratory facility, which is now a key training centre for future research in the field.
In addition, silicon detector technologies were considered in the second part of the programme. In this case, tools and equipment are quite demanding and expensive. It was therefore very beneficial for Egyptian scientists to operate in European facilities where those infrastructures are already active. New silicon wafer configurations for the CMS tracker inner detector were electrically characterized, before and after irradiation with neutron and protons, in terms of capacitance and resistance. This work set the baseline option for the CMS experiment upgrade. During the development of these activities, other Egyptian partners were involved with large infrastructural capacities (Zewail City of Science and Technology), which has successfully led the Egyptian community to an official involvement in the CMS tracker upgrade. As further sign of the vitality of this activity, the Egyptian Academy of Science (ASRT) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) have funded a common project for the development of silicon detectors.
Finally, GRID computer application were investigated with the ultimate scope of setting up a Mediterranean distributed computing infrastructure to fulfil the requirement of several scientific communities. The training of expertise in Europe has allowed the building up of small TIER3 GRID computing centres in each Egyptian university by proper installation of hardware and software resources. In this context, a large TIER2 facility was promoted and funded by the Egyptian Academy of Science (ASRT). Expertise for the operation of the ASRT TIER2 was consolidated through the EENP2 project.
EENP2 managed to achieve important results in terms of people exchange and training, infrastructure developments, enhancement of research capabilities of the partner institutions. In the period 2013- 2016, 30 Egyptian scientists had the possibility to visit Europe and collaborate with the POLIBA and ECOLE groups on advanced research fields for a total of about 140 months. They joined advanced scientific collaborations, developing skills on data analysis, GRID technologies and detector technologies. Those Egyptians scientists are now the seeds for further dissemination of knowledge and expertise in the country among, above all, young Ph.D and Post Doc researchers. Dissemination of the knowledge was pursed through proper regular meetings, general workshops, publication on international journals and three editions of an international school on high-energy physics.
EENP2 was also active in promoting at management level the collaboration among different Egyptian institutions toward a local integrated scientific organization, as well as their interface with high level European research institutions. Relevant is the organization of an Egyptian network for high-energy physics (ENHEP) coordinated by the Academy for Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT). Collaboration agreements with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and the GRID computing center ReCaS were also possible thanks to the support of EENP2 in establish scientists contacts.
The project was coordinated by two established member states organizations, Politecnico di Bari, Italy (POLIBA) and Ecole Polytechnique, France (ECOLE). Important public Egyptian universities, Helwan, Cairo and Ain Shams were active part of the network.
The following institutes participated to the project:
Physics Department at Politecnico di Bari, Italy (POLIBA)
Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet (LLR) at Ecole Polytechnique, France (ECOLE)
Physics Department at Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt (HELWAN)
Computing Eng. Department at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt (CAIRO)
Physics Department at Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt (AINSHAM)
The EENP2 studies covered a wide range of fields, spanning from phenomenological particle physics investigation to detector and computing technologies. It was a great circumstance the discovered on 2012 of the Higgs boson, since an important scope of the EENP2 scientific program was about the study of its properties. EENP2 offered a unique possibility to many Egyptian scientists to collaborate in one of the most fascinating epochal discovery in particle physics and to contribute to set the Higgs proprieties with high precision. The research work was also extended to the investigation of Super Symmetric extensions of the Standard Model through the search of new particles besides the Higgs boson. The study contributed to set new limits to the existence of those particles.
In parallel, more technological oriented activities were developed in the field of particles detectors, also with the ultimate scope to build awareness of the new key enabling technologies and setup local laboratory infrastructures. Both gaseous and silicon detector developments were addressed. In the first case, Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) and Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) instruments were studied in the contest of the upgrade of the CERN CMS experiment. As results, new detector configurations were proposed and tested for validation with particle beams and radioactive sources. The Helwan Physics Department instrumented an import laboratory facility, which is now a key training centre for future research in the field.
In addition, silicon detector technologies were considered in the second part of the programme. In this case, tools and equipment are quite demanding and expensive. It was therefore very beneficial for Egyptian scientists to operate in European facilities where those infrastructures are already active. New silicon wafer configurations for the CMS tracker inner detector were electrically characterized, before and after irradiation with neutron and protons, in terms of capacitance and resistance. This work set the baseline option for the CMS experiment upgrade. During the development of these activities, other Egyptian partners were involved with large infrastructural capacities (Zewail City of Science and Technology), which has successfully led the Egyptian community to an official involvement in the CMS tracker upgrade. As further sign of the vitality of this activity, the Egyptian Academy of Science (ASRT) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) have funded a common project for the development of silicon detectors.
Finally, GRID computer application were investigated with the ultimate scope of setting up a Mediterranean distributed computing infrastructure to fulfil the requirement of several scientific communities. The training of expertise in Europe has allowed the building up of small TIER3 GRID computing centres in each Egyptian university by proper installation of hardware and software resources. In this context, a large TIER2 facility was promoted and funded by the Egyptian Academy of Science (ASRT). Expertise for the operation of the ASRT TIER2 was consolidated through the EENP2 project.
EENP2 managed to achieve important results in terms of people exchange and training, infrastructure developments, enhancement of research capabilities of the partner institutions. In the period 2013- 2016, 30 Egyptian scientists had the possibility to visit Europe and collaborate with the POLIBA and ECOLE groups on advanced research fields for a total of about 140 months. They joined advanced scientific collaborations, developing skills on data analysis, GRID technologies and detector technologies. Those Egyptians scientists are now the seeds for further dissemination of knowledge and expertise in the country among, above all, young Ph.D and Post Doc researchers. Dissemination of the knowledge was pursed through proper regular meetings, general workshops, publication on international journals and three editions of an international school on high-energy physics.
EENP2 was also active in promoting at management level the collaboration among different Egyptian institutions toward a local integrated scientific organization, as well as their interface with high level European research institutions. Relevant is the organization of an Egyptian network for high-energy physics (ENHEP) coordinated by the Academy for Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT). Collaboration agreements with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and the GRID computing center ReCaS were also possible thanks to the support of EENP2 in establish scientists contacts.
