Early Career Conference on Trapped Ions 2020
Between 13 and 17 of January, CERN hosted the first edition of the Early Career Conference on Trapped Ions (ECCTI 2020), which focused on the different research fields of trapped ion applications. The conference aimed at giving PhD students and early career researchers the opportunity to present their work to a supportive international audience and included useful skill-developing sessions.
Bianca Veglia from the QUASAR Group and a Fellow of the AVA network was invited to be a member of the scientific committee. Bianca is working on her PhD research at the University of Liverpool studying the ELENA electron cooler, a new decelerating ring which is designed to improve the quality of the antiproton beam used by antimatter experiments. Thanks to electron cooling at lowest energies than ever before, the number of available antiprotons can be increased by a factor of 100, paving the way for new experiments.
Bianca’s role in the scientific committee was to select and chair the talks related to antimatter research. The conference was a great success with 73 participants coming from different institutions across 16 different countries. It brought together researchers from different fields giving opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange.
Trapped ions have many applications in different research fields. One of these is Quantum Information and Computing, topics of global interest in the present days. Other talks during the conference covered atomic clock research, quantum optics, precision measurements and quantum simulations together with two antimatter sessions. Members of ALPHA, BASE and GBAR collaborations presented their latest results in antimatter experiments.
The conference ended with tours of the LHC detectors, ATLAS and CMS.