Salvatore Esposito

The article explores the historical and scientific journey of measuring the mass of neutrinos, a fundamental particle in physics. Since their hypothesized existence by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, neutrinos have challenged physicists due to their weak interactions and minuscule mass. The discovery of neutrino oscillations in 1998 confirmed their mass, sparking various experimental approaches to measure it. The article delves into the history of these experiments, focusing on direct mass determination methods and the nature of neutrinos, whether Dirac or Majorana particles. It highlights significant experiments, such as those involving tritium and rhenium, and discusses the implications of neutrino mass on physics beyond the Standard Model. The article also covers the potential of neutrinoless double beta-decay experiments to reveal the nature of neutrinos and the conservation of lepton number.

Crystal channeling is increasingly integrated into modern particle accelerators for its efficiency in deploying large kicks. At CERN's Large Hadron Collider, crystals are used for collimation and fixed-target opportunities in Physics Beyond Colliders studies. Reliable simulation tools that integrate crystal effects on the beam with multi-turn tracking are crucial for optimizing performance. This work presents a simulation setup that includes magnetic tracking, detailed aperture models, particle-matter interactions, and coherent physics processes in crystals, using SixTrack and FLUKA. Benchmarks for collimation of multi-TeV protons have been conducted with LHC data.

The article chronicles the formation of the Naples group of Statistical Mechanics, highlighting the efforts and achievements of Antonio Coniglio and his collaborators over two decades. Despite challenges, including limited support for research in Italy, the group was formally established in the early 1990s. The narrative underscores the group's significant contributions to statistical physics even before its official formation.

The article reviews the current knowledge of allelic variations in Vrn genes, which play a crucial role in wheat's transition from vegetative to reproductive growth. It examines the functional and structural aspects of Vrn alleles across different ploidy levels and highlights the complexity of their structural forms and nomenclature issues. The review emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues for harmonizing research efforts and enhancing understanding of Vrn gene function and evolution. It also discusses the potential of genomic and transcriptome sequences, bioinformatics, and computational biology in manipulating flowering time to improve wheat productivity.