Dipartimento di Fisica

The Physics Department at Sapienza University of Rome is the largest among this discipline in Italy for number of faculty and students. It is the natural prosecution of the so-called Roman School and it is still worldwide renowned for the high quality of the research carried out in various fields of physics. All this is witnessed by important indicators, such as:

1. The volume of assets deriving from research contracts with organizations and funding agencies such as the EU Community and other institutions. Among others, 11 grants of the European Research Council in the last 3 years are particularly worth of noting;
2. The number of papers published in prestigious international journals (approximately 1900 in the period 2014-2016), especially those with impact factor IF > 10 (50+ in the period 2014-2016);
3. The high percentage of papers published in collaboration with researchers affiliated with for- eign institutions;
4. The number and quality of international workshops and conferences organized within the Department, as well as the presence of professors and researchers of the Department who have organized and are part of the scientific committees for numerous international conferences.

These last two aspects in particular demonstrate the high level of internationalization of our community.
The entire research activity of our department has a natural fall out in the number of PhD students and also in our two master’s degree courses, with nearly 150 and 30 students choosing our Laurea Magistrale in Physics and in Astronomy and Astrophysics, respectively, and more than 430 new students of the Laurea in Physics every year. Another important element that testifies the quality of the research conducted within the Department of Physics and the vitality of the Roman School is represented by the 7 awards granted in this triennium to members of our community.
In the present report, we show the results of more than 100 research lines, grouped in the subject areas of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Geophysics, Condensed Matter Physics and Biophysics, Particle Physics and Fundamental Interactions and, finally, Theoretical Physics, with a summary of the research lines for each area. A relevant number of these research acivities is carried out in continuous collaboration with other institutions affiliated to the Physics Department. The present report gives also a detailed description of the numerous laboratories and experimental and computational facilities that make possibile the development of the entire set of research activities.
To provide a complete insight on the Department activity, this book reports all the Schools, Workshops and Conferences held in this period. The list of published papers in international referred journals divided by year completes the description.
During the last years, the Italian university and research world has experienced many changes and encountered increasing difficulties, mainly due to the general economical crisis. In spite of this critical situation, the Physics Department continues to work while maintaining a level of excellence. I wish to thank the whole body of our scientists that contribute with their enthusiasm every day to these results and all the administrative and technical staff, that make all these results possibile with their professional and personal effort.

Paolo Mataloni
Director of the Department of Physics