A technical-scientific committee to support the Italian candidacy to host the future ET Einstein Telescope project, the large next-generation European research infrastructure for the study of gravitational waves, has been formally established by decree of the Minister of Universities and Research, Anna Maria Bernini. The committee is chaired by Physics Nobel Laureate Giorgio Parisi, and includes Ambassador Ettore Sequi, secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and scientists Marica Branchesi and Fernando Ferroni, from the Gran Sasso Science Institute and INFN, and Antonio Zoccoli, president of INFN.
“We thank Minister Anna Maria Bernini for setting up an ad hoc scientific committee to support Italy’s candidacy to host Einstein Telescope, the next generation European research infrastructure for the study of gravitational waves. And we thank Nobel laureate Giorgio Parisi for his commitment in chairing this new working group,” comments Antonio Zoccoli, INFN president. “The Italian candidature is a very strong one. The site identified, in the former Sos Enattos mine in Sardinia, offers ideal characteristics for hosting ET, and Italy is tackling the competition with a great team spirit between scientific and political institutions, with MUR and the Autonomous Region of Sardinia at the forefront. Moreover, we can count on the multidisciplinary expertise of the Italian scientific communities involved in the project, and on the specific experience of the INFN community, which for fifty years has been one of the world’s leading players in the research on gravitational waves that won the Nobel Prize in 2017,” Zoccoli concludes.