Frascati National Laboratory

Submitted by Hannah Wisser, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Class of 2017

July 4th, 2014- Frascati

            We met the hot Roman morning optimistic and full of hope as we embarked on our adventure. Today would be the day we would see Frascati National Laboratory. It started off simple enough, leaving the hotel and going to the Metro. However, upon exiting the Metro, we had become lost. The guide did not know which direction our destination lied and it took a good ten minutes to distinguish our left from our right. After several wrong turns we finally decided to do the unthinkable: we asked for directions. The extraordinarily helpful Italians pointed us in the right direction and we arrived at the Laboratory only several minutes late.

            The laboratory covered a vast expanse and was full of twisting roads leading scientists from one detector to the next. We followed these winding roads to the administration building where the mysteries of Frascati were unraveled before us. Detectors by the name of NEMO, DAPHINE, KLOE, and NAUTILUS were explained to us at this time.

            Once the seminar concluded our guide led us to DAPHINE and we stood among the accelerator basking in its technological beauty as dipole and quadropole magnets whirred all around filling the air with their powerful magnetic field. Standing tall above us was the detector itself, not yet turned on, but ready to be booted up and used to monitor collision after collision of subatomic particles.

            With spare time on our hands and an entire campus of detectors, we seized the opportunity and viewed NAUTILUS. A humorous life-sized cutout of Albert Einstein smiled at us upon our entrance and a big green blob of a detector was set behind him. Designed to detect gravity waves it seems almost out of date compared to some newer experiments designed for the same purpose, but using up to date technology for a more sensitive detector. Still, NAUTILUS continues to run in hopes of observing something that might fit the mold for gravity waves.

            We left this establishment full of knowledge and a four course lunch and embarked on the journey back to the apartment where rest and a soft bed was to be had.

The Daphne Detector at Frascati National Laboratory outside of Rome. Picture by Hannah Wisser