20 years of the Stefan Meyer Institute
On 11 Nov 2024 the Stefan Meyer Institute for subatomic Physics (SMI) in Vienna celebrated its 20 year anniversary. The institute itself is part of a longer history dating back to 1910 when the Institute for Radium Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences was founded, which was later renamed twice to become SMI. The anniversary was celebrated with a scientific symposium, a ceremony, and a dinner party.
The symposium covered the research topics of SMI in the study of fundamental interactions and symmetries, spanning the last 20 years Catalina Curceanu of INFN-LNF spoke about X ray spectroscopy of kaonic atoms in the SIDDHARTA and SIDDHARTA-2 experiments at LNF Frascati, Marco Van Leeuwen (NIKHEEF) about studies of the Quark Gluon Plasma by the ALICE collaboration at the LHC Klaus Kirch (PSI and ETH Zürich) presented the opportunities offered at PSI for low energy precision experiments with neutrons, pions and muons. Antihydrogen and hydrogen spectroscopy experiments by the ASACUSA collaboration at CERN-AD were presented by Chloé Malbrunot (TRIUMF) and, as the latest addition to SMI’s research programme, optical, microwave, and gravitational spectroscopy of cold and ultra cold hydrogen undertaken within the GRASIAN collaboration by Pauline Yzombard (LKB Paris).
The ceremony consisted of greetings by representatives of the Austrian Academy of
Sciences, the University of Vienna, and TU Wien, and an overview of the history and achievement of SMI by its director, Eberhard Widmann. The event ended by a reception and a dinner party allowing to contemplate the overview of a broad range of physics topics in a relaxed atmosphere.