Irene Tamborra receives ERC Consolidator Grant from the EU

As the only recipient from the faculty of science this year, NBIA Professor Irene Tamborra has just been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant from the EU.

Irene Tamborra's ERC project aims at solving one of the most urgent riddles in modern particle astrophysics: how elementary particles, such as neutrinos, affect the physics of spectacular cosmic fireworks in the death of massive stars as core-collapse supernova explosions and in the merger of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole. Neutrinos are feebly interacting particles very copiously produced in these astrophysical sources. Because of the extremely complex conditions in the core of supernovae or compact binary mergers, our understanding of neutrino physics in the sources is quite preliminary. Yet, neutrinos are the main drivers behind supernova explosions and the synthesis of the elements heavier than iron, such as gold and platinum. This project promises to have profound implications on fundamental physics, the origin of the heavy elements, as well as our comprehension of the behavior of matter at extreme densities.