Antonio Ereditato

Antonio Ereditato (Napoli, 2 June 1955) is an Italian physicist, professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where is director of the Laboratory for High Energy Physics [[1]] and of the Albert Einstein Centre for Fundamental Physics [[2]].


Biography

After his degree (1981) and PhD (1987) in physics at the University of Napoli Federico II, Ereditato worked at CNRS Strasbourg, at CERN and at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Napoli, where he obtained the position of Director of Research since 1998. From 2006 Ereditato is ordinary professor of Elementary Particle Physics at the University of Bern. He carried out research activities in the field of experimental neutrino physics, of weak interactions and strong interactions with experiments conducted at CERN, in Japan, at Fermilab in USA and at the LNGS in Italy. Ereditato has accomplished several R&D studies on particle detectors: wire chambers, calorimeters, time projection chambers, nuclear emulsions, detectors for medical applications.

He has served in several international scientific committees: SPSC, CNGS and LHCC at CERN, and is presently member of the PAC of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research of Dubna, of the International Scientific Advisor Committee of the Fermilab Neutrino Physics Center, and of the DOE International Neutrino Council. Ereditato has been also member of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He served in Advisory Committees of international conferences, such as the Calorimetry Conference. Referee and peer review member of international journals and of Funding Agencies, Ereditato is currently Editor-in Chief of Instruments. He is member of the Aspen Institute Italia [[3]].

From 2008 to 2012 Antonio Ereditato has been the spokesperson of the OPERA neutrino experiment that he proposed in 1997 together with Kimio Niwa and Paolo Strolin. The experiment studied neutrino oscillations along the CNGS beam from CERN to the LNGS Gran Sasso Laboratory. On 31 May 2010 Ereditato announced the detection of the first tau-neutrino by OPERA. This was the first indication of the direct appearance of neutrino oscillations. On September 2011 the OPERA Collaboration announced that an anomaly was detected in the measurement of the neutrino velocity, pointing to the possibility of superluminal muon neutrinos. The source of the anomaly was then found by the OPERA researchers as due to an instrumental problem [[4]].

As head of the ATLAS Bern group, Ereditato contributed to the discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 [[5]]. In the framework of the T2K experiment in Japan, in 2013 he took part in the discovery of the appearance of neutrino oscillations [[6]] and with the OPERA collaboration he shared the discovery of tau-neutrino appearance [[7]]. For these results Ereditato was one of the recipients of the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He is currently involved in the USA neutrino program, notably with the MicroBooNE [[8]] and SBND [[9]] experiments at Fermilab aimed at the search for sterile neutrinos. He has been one of the founders of the DUNE [[10]] experiment for the high precision study of neutrino oscillations and astroparticle physics.

The research group of Ereditato is also leader in the R&D for detectors with liquid argon TPCs [[11]] and for the use of emulsion detectors in various applications, such as those for cosmic muon radiography [[12]]. Antonio Ereditato has also contributed to setting up a research laboratory in Bern centered on a cyclotron for medical research [[13]].

Ereditato is author of more than 1100 scientific publications [[14]]. More bibliometric information can be found in [[15]].

Antonio Ereditato is very active with scientific divulgation. In particular, he has written a scientific book in Italian for general public, Le Particelle Elementari, Il Saggiatore, 2017, (being translated into English) and together with Edoardo Boncinelli, Il Cosmo della Mente, il Saggiatore 2018. For these activities, he got the 2017 Caccuri Prize for Literature and Science [[16]]and the 2017 Maria Antonia Gervasio Prize.


Scientific achievements

  • Responsible for the specific trigger for tri-muon search in the NA10 experiment at CERN and the related physics analysis
  • Responsible for the installation, operation and calibration of the streamer tube calorimeter of the CHARM II experiment.
  • Measurement of the Weinberg angle in νμ – electron interactions
  • Initiative to contribute with an INFN Napoli group to the CERN SPACAL project and to the follow up RD1 experiment. World record energy resolution for hadronic calorimeters
  • Co-promoter of the CALOR Conference series (1991→today)
  • Proponent of R&D studies on novel liquid scintillator calorimeters (FORWARD) and trackers (ACTAR)
  • Proposal of using a lead-fiber calorimeter in the CHORUS experiment. Project Leader for its construction and responsible of its operation. Initiative to set up and operate a CHORUS emulsion scanning laboratory at INFN Napoli
  • Measurement of neutrino properties and of neutrino induced processes with the CHARM II and CHORUS experiments. Most sensitive limit to νμ−ντ oscillations with a short baseline experiment
  • Initiative and proposal of new high-sensitivity, short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments: TENOR and TOSCA
  • Co-proponent of the conceptual idea of the OPERA experiment. Leader of the initial phase of the experiment, until its scientific approval from CERN
  • Co-author of the Technical Design Report of the CNGS neutrino beam
  • Setting up of a cryogenic laboratory at INFN Napoli to develop LAr TPCs within the ICARUS project
  • As LHEP and AEC Director in Bern, promoter of new initiatives in addition to ATLAS and OPERA: T2K and NA61 experiments, R&D on novel cryogenic detectors, medical physics, novel applications of nuclear emulsions for muon and proton radiography, measurement of the equivalence principle for antimatter and quantum interference, search for sterile neutrinos, future neutrino observatories
  • First indication of a non-zero θ13 angle in the PMNS neutrino mixing matrix with the T2K experiment
  • World record drift track length in LAr TPCs with the ARGONTUBE detector
  • First application of UV laser calibration for LAr TPCs
  • Co-proponent of the use of nuclear emulsions for the antimatter AEgIS experiment at CERN
  • Contribution to the setting up of the cyclotron laboratory of the Bern Inselspital for isotope production and research
  • Discovery of νe appearance with the T2K experiment
  • Discovery of the Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment
  • Contribution to the realization of LAr TPC based experiments at Fermilab (MicroBooNE and SBND)
  • Discovery of ντ oscillation appearance with the OPERA experiment
  • Initiative for an R&D project at CERN/Fermilab on a novel LAr TPC for DUNE (ARGONCUBE)
  • Initiative for a new long baseline neutrino-oscillation project at Fermilab (LBNF/DUNE)
  • First measurement of muon-antineutrino disappearance with the T2K experiment
  • First indication for a non vanishing CP violating phase in the PMNS mixing matrix with T2K
  • First proof of a pixelated readout for LAr TPCs


Scientific duties and responsibilities

  • Coordinator of the Napoli-INFN Electronics and Detector Workshop (1996-2004)
  • Member of the ICARUS Editorial Board (2002-2005)
  • Director of the High Energy Physics Laboratory (LHEP) at the Institute of Physics of the University of Bern (2006→)
  • Co-director of the Physics Institute of the University of Bern (2006→)
  • Member of the T2K Institute Board (2006→2014)
  • Member of the ATLAS Collaboration Board (2006→)
  • Chairperson of the OPERA Publication and Conference Board (2006-2008)
  • Chairperson of the OPERA Collaboration Board (2007-2008)
  • Member of the Executive Board of the Swiss Institute for Particle Physics (CHIPP) (2008-2010)
  • Spokesperson of the OPERA Collaboration (2008-2012)
  • Member of the T2K Speaker Committee (2008)
  • Director of the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Bern (2011→)
  • Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Bern (2013-2015)
  • Chairperson of the SBND International Board (2014-2017)
  • Spokesperson of the ARGONCUBE project at CERN/Bern
  • Swiss representative of the LBNF/DUNE Collaboration Resource Board (2015→)
  • Member of the SBND Publication Committee (2016-2018)
  • Chairperson of the MicroBooNE International Board (2017→)
  • Member of the SBN Oversight Board (2018→)


  • CERN-INFN Technical Committee for the design of the CNGS neutrino beam (1997-2003)
  • CERN Large Hadron Collider Scientific Committee (LHCC) (1997-2001). Member of the referee team of the LHCb experiment. Head referee for the ALICE experiment
  • CERN Proto-Synchrotron and Super-Proton-Synchrotron Scientific Committee (SPSC) (2006-2010)
  • Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Council, Division II (2010-2017)
  • Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship Committee (2011→)
  • Program Advisory Committee (PAC) for High-Energy Physics of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) Dubna (2011→)
  • Swiss National Science Foundation FAID Committee for Interdisciplinary Proposals (2012-2017)
  • Fermilab interim International Executive Board (iIEB) for the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) (2014→2015)
  • International Scientific Advisor Committee of the Fermilab Neutrino Physics Center (2016→)
  • Member of the DOE International Neutrino Council for the LBL neutrino program (2016→)


  • Int. Advisory Committee of the Int. Conf. on Calorimetry in Particle Physics (1991→) (Proponent and Scientific Secretary of the Conference series)
  • Chairman of the II Int. Conf. on Calorimetry in Particle Physics (Capri 1991)
  • Local Organizing Committee of the WIN97 Workshop (Capri, 1997)
  • Int. Advisory Committee of the VI Int. Topical Seminar on Neutrinos and Astro-particle Physics (San Miniato, 1999)
  • Organizing Committee of the Int. Workshop on Nuclear Emulsion Techniques (Nagoya 1998, 2002, 2008)
  • Int. Advisory Committee of the Neutrino Conference Series (2008, 2012 editions)
  • Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 2008 ATLAS Overview Week (Bern 7-11 July 2008)
  • Co-convenor of the Neutrino Detector Session of the TIPP 11 Conference on Instrumentation (Chicago, 2011)
  • Int. Advisory Committee of the Workshop on Muon and Neutrino Radiography (2012→)
  • Int. Advisory Committee of the Workshop of Nuclear Track Emulsion and its Future (Sinaia, 14-19 October 2013)
  • Local Organizing Committee of the II Int. Workshop on Antimatter and Gravity (Bern, 13-15 November 2013)
  • Organizing Committee of the Strategy Workshop on Astroparticle in Switzerland (Geneva, 11-13 June 2014)
  • Program Committee of the Workshop for Neutrino Programs with Facilities in Japan (J-PARC 4-6 August 2015)


  • Member of the Editorial Board of the New Journal of Physics (2004→2012)
  • Editor of a New Journal of Physics focus issue on “Physics at the TeV scale”: 2007 New J. Phys. 9
  • Member of the Editorial Board of Advances in High Energy Physics (2016)
  • Editor-in-Chief of Instruments (2016→)
  • Referee of international journals of physics: Physics Letters, Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Journal of Instrumentation, Nuclear Physics, Radiation Measurements, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, International Research Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry


Thesis supervision

Laurea: G. Fiorillo, S. Buontempo, F. Riccardi, A.G. Cocco, S. Mennella, V. Barassi, M. Messina, P. Migliozzi, G. De Lellis, R. Listone, P. Paolucci, R. Peluso, G. Sorrentino, V. Gallo, M. Della Pietra.

Master: M. Zeller, J. Casutt, S. Delaquis, S. Studer, T. Kruker, Ch. Rudolph von Rohr, S. Burla, M. Nirkko, A. Blatter, L. Buetikofer, D. Göldi, M. Lüthi, M. Schenk, B. Gerber, M. Häberli, E. Kirillova, S. Joos, K. Zihlmann, M. Hostettler, M. Mostafaei, Y. Bandi, T. Mettler, S. Käser, F. Stocker, P. Köller, R. Berner.

PhD: G. Fiorillo, F. Garufi, P. Migliozzi, B. Rossi, J. Knuesel, C. Topfel, N. Venturi, I. Badhrees, V. Gallo, C. Borer, E. Frank, T. Kruker, F. Bay, M. Zeller, M. Agustoni, F. P. La Torre, B. Schneider, L. Marti, C. Severino, S. Tufanli, M. Bucciantonio, S. Stucci, M. E. Stramaglia, K. Nesteruk, A. Ehtesham, D. Göldi, G. D’Amen, G. Mullier, M. Hostettler, M.Rimoldi.