On October 17-19, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in collaboration with Georgian Technical University will host the international conference “Past, Present and Future Collaboration Georgia – CERN,” commemorating the 70th anniversary of CERN. As part of the event, a group of physicists from two large experiments of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, ATLAS and CMS, will visit Georgia. In collaboration with their Georgian counterparts, they will summarize the results attained in the field of elementary particle physics over recent years and delineate prospective avenues for future collaboration.

The event will open at 10:00 on October 17.  

Members of the CERN delegation are: Ludovico Pontecorvo, Technical Coordinator of the Atlas Experiment; Henric Wilkens, head of the Atlas Tile Hadron Detector; Danijela Bogavac, Atlas Tile-Calorimeter Physical Data Collection and Processing Coordinator; Giulio Usai, Project Leader for the Atlas Experiment Tile-Detector Upgrade; Alessandro Polini, Deputy Coordinator of the Atlas Muon Detector; Irakli Minashvili, coordinator of tile-calorimeter service and infrastructure of the Atlas experiment, associate employee of the Institute of High Energy Physics of TSU.  

It is noteworthy that TSU’s collaboration with ATLAS commenced in the 1990s, despite the challenging socio-economic context in Georgia at the time. Georgian physicists demonstrated their capability to become valuable contributors to this international endeavor. The core of the Georgian group currently engaged in collaboration is the team of physicists working at the Institute of High Energy Physics of TSU. Members of the team have made significant contributions to the design and continued operation of the ATLAS instrument’s two critical detector systems, the Hadron Tile Calorimeter and the Muon Cameras. Additionally, some physicists are involved in the ATLAS physical analysis program. TSU students are also actively engaged in research, with three master’s theses and two doctoral theses having been successfully completed within the framework of this program over the past decade.

It is anticipated that future work will continue to focus on the development and operation of the hadron calorimeter, as well as the processing of data collected during the second phase of the collider, which will have a higher luminosity. At the present time, CERN is engaged in active discourse surrounding a prospective new major undertaking, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) project. TSU intends to participate in the aforementioned project and sign a memorandum of cooperation with the FCC initiative. The memorandum will facilitate the active involvement of Georgian students and young scientists in contemporary research.