CAPPUZZELLO FRANCESCO

Professore Ordinario

Curriculum

Name: Francesco Cappuzzello
e-mail cappuzzello@lns.infn.it
https://www.dfa.unict.it/docenti/francesco.cappuzzello
Education and early career
• 1996: Graduate degree (MSc), University of Catania (UNICT), grade 110/110 cum Laude
• 1999: Ph.D., UNICT, grade cum Laude
• 2000-2005: Several Post Doc positions, including 4 years “Assegno di Ricerca” for Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and 1 year “Assegno di Ricerca” for UNICT
• 2006-2018: Researcher of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNICT
Present position
• 2018 - present: Associate Professor of the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Ettore Majorana”, UNICT
• 2010 - present: “Research Encharged” for INFN
• 2013 - present: Member of the Council of the “Dottorato di Ricerca in Fisica”, UNICT
Responsibilities in research projects
Ongoing responsibilities
• Spokesperson (SP) of the NUMEN collaboration since 2015 (>4M€, 102 researchers, 40 Institutions, 16 Countries)
• National Responsible (NR) of NUMEN_GR3 of INFN (since 2016) (~3.5M€,~ 45 res)
• Local Responsible (LR) for UNICT of the ERC NURE project “Nuclear Reactions for neutrinoless double beta decay” (since 2020), Grant Agreement number: 714625 — NURE — ERC-2016-STG/ERC-2016-STG (362 k€, 7 res)

Past responsibilities
• NR of the SPEME experiment, INFN (2010-2011) (~100k€/year,~ 10 res)
• NR of the DREAMS experiment, INFN (2012-2015) (~100k€/anno, ~ 15 res)
• SP of a MoU between INFN–LNS and IN2P3-IPN-Orsay (France) (2011-2017) (26 res)
• SP of a MoU between INFN–LNS, IFUSP (San Paolo, Brazil), IFUFF (Niteroi, Brazil)
(2011-2018) (27 res)
• Co-SP of a MoU between INFN–LNS and Akdeniz University (Turkey) (2016-2018) (100k€, 20 res)
• Co-SP of a MoU between INFN–LNS and Ioannina University (Greece) (2016-2018) (50k€, 10 res)
• SP of a MoU between INFN–LNS and UNAM (Mexico) (2018-2020) (100k€, 20 res)
• LR of the WP15 - JRA7 TecHIBA “Technologies for High Intensity Beams and Applications”. Grant Agreement number: 654002, ENSAR2 H2020-INFRAIA-2014-2015 (100k€, 3 res) (2016-2020)
• PI of the project “Studio dell'elemento di matrice del doppio decadimento beta mediante reazioni nucleari”, University of Catania, FIR 2014 (15k€, 8 res) (2015-2017)
Main research activities
Score
• Approved experiments proposed as SP: 28
• Participation at experiments in international collaboration: 40

Main research topics
• Magnetic spectrometry: I have contributed to the field of magnetic spectrometry. The main achievement is the design and construction of the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer, which has strongly characterized the first part of my career. The spectrometer is installed at the INFN-LNS, conjugating large solid angle and momentum acceptance with high energy, mass and angular resolution. This facility is nowadays unique worldwide, attracting many research groups from abroad. Part of this activity is presented in two review papers.

The MAGNEX spectrometer: Results and perspectives F.C. et al., Eur. Phys. Jour. A (2016) 52: 167.


• Transfer reactions: I participated and organized, often acting as SP, several experiments in various international laboratories studying nucleon and cluster transfer reactions. One of the major achievements was the discovery of signatures of the long-searched Giant Pairing Vibrations in atomic nuclei. Such finding has permitted to overcome a fundamental problem of symmetries in quantum-mechanics.

Signatures of the Giant Pairing Vibration in the 14C and 15C atomic nuclei, F.C. et al., Nature Comm., Article number: 6743 (2015).


• Nuclear scattering: I was spokesperson of an extensive collaboration with IFUSP of San Paolo and IFUFF of Niteroi (Brazil), focused on this topic. We have found that the phenomenon of nuclear rainbow is also present in collisions between heavy nuclei.

Nuclear rainbow in the 16O+27Al system: The role of couplings at energies far above the barrier, D. Pereira et al., Phys. Lett. B 710 (2012) 426.


• Charge exchange reactions: subject of the degree and Ph.D. theses. These studies demonstrated that the heavy-ion induced charge exchange cross sections can be connected to the strength of the corresponding beta-decays, with major consequences in both nuclear physics and astrophysics.

Heavy Ion Charge Exchange Reactions, H. Lenske, F.C. et al Prog. in Part. and Nucl. Phys., 109 (2019) 103716.

• Double Charge Exchange reactions: I was one of the main proposers and performers of the first pioneering experiments showing that the matrix elements of double beta decay can be extracted, under specific conditions, from cross sections of double charge exchange at zero degrees. This has triggered the NUMEN project, aiming at determining data-driven matrix elements for neutrino-less double beta decay.

Heavy-ion double charge exchange reactions: A tool toward 0vbb nuclear matrix elements F.C. et al., Eur. Phys. Jour. A (2015) 51: 145.

• Structure of light nuclei: I have proposed and participated to several experiments worldwide to study the structure of exotic light nuclei

Excited states of 11Be F.C. et al., Phys. Lett. B 516 (2001) 21
Investigation of the 10Li shell inversion by neutron continuum transfer reaction, M. Cavallaro, M. De Napoli, F.C. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 118 (2017) 012701
Collaboration with research institutions
• Project Evaluator (PE) for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
• PE for the Croatian Science Foundation (CSF)
• PE for the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), program COFUND - Marie Curie.
• Member of the Panel of International Experts for the Long Range Plan of the i-Themba LABS, South Africa.
• Examiner for the South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) of Senior Researchers licence candidates in Experimental Nuclear Physics
• Invited researcher at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niteroi, Brazil
• Invited “Jury de These”, Service des Etudes Doctorales, Universitè Paris-Sud 11, Orsay
• Invited member of the “7 Member Examination Committee of the Ph.D, University of Ioannina
• Invited external member of the “PhD Committee in Physics of the University of Napoli Federico II and Universitè Paris-Saclay”
Main publications and editorial activity
• Co-Author of 7 review articles, 221 articles, more than 80 as first, second or corresponding author, H = 36, Citations = 3188 (SCOPUS)
• Referee of more than 70 articles for 16 peer reviewed journals: Nature Phys., Nucl. Phys. A, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A, Eur. Phys. Jour. A, Eur. Phys. Lett., Jour. of Phys. B, Jour. of Phys. G, Few-Body Syst., Adv. in High En. Phys., Phys. in Med. and Biol., Int. Jour. of Mod. Phys. E, Sensors, Energies, Mod. Phys. Lett.
• Co-Editor of the article collection Neutrino Nuclear Responses for Astro-Particle Physics by Nuclear Reactions and Nuclear Decays in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences - section High-Energy and Astroparticle Physics.
International conferences, workshops and schools
• Chairman of the International Conference on Neutrino and Nuclear Physics, 15-21 October 2017, Catania
• Chairman of the International Workshop NUMEN 2015 – Challenges in the investigation of double charge-exchange nuclear reactions: towards neutrino-less double beta decay, 1-2 December 2015, Catania
• Chairman of the International Workshop MAGNET 2010 – Nuclear Physics with Modern Magnetic Spectrometers, 14-16 December 2010, Catania
• Organizer of the workshop Neutrino Nuclear Responses for Double Beta Decays and Astro Neutrinos 8-9 May 2019, Osaka
• Member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC), from the 14th edition, 11-16 September 2022, Cape Town
• Member of the IAC of the Conference Nuclear Reaction Mechanisms, from the 14th edition15-19 June 2015, Varenna
• Member of the IAC of the Mexican Symposium on Nuclear Physics, from the 40th edition held in Cocoyoc, Morelos, 5-9 January 2017
• Member of the IAC of the 12th International Spring Seminar on Nuclear Physics “Current Problems and Prospects for Nuclear Structure”, 15-19 May 2017, Sant’Angelo d’Ischia
• Member of the IAC of the African Nuclear Physics Conference to be held at Kruger National Park, 1-5 July 2019
• Member of the IAC of the IV International Conference on Nuclear Structure and Dynamics NSD2019 May 13-17, 2019, Venice
• Member of the IAC of the Conference on Neutrino and Nuclear Physics, from 1st edition 15-21 October 2017, Catania
• Panel member for Workshop on Nuclear Physics in South Africa, at i-Themba LABS (Cape Town) October 26-28 2016, Cape Town
• Speaker of 106 talks in Conferences, Schools, Workshops, Colloquia and Seminars, 81 of which invited
• Invited Chair of 9 Sessions in International Conferences
Tutoring
I had and have the pleasure and responsibility to train and introduce to research activity several young students from different countries (15 Master, 12 Ph.D., 18 Post-Doc, 5 ERASMUS + fellows). Some of them have already completed their training and are now approaching their activity in public research institutions or in private companies.
Outreach activities
• Organizer of the Colloquium “Capire Fukushima - Nucleare: passato, presente e future”, Catania 6 Aprile 2022. https://www.dfa.unict.it/it/content/capire-fukushima
• Invited Author of a highly impactive article on Outreach, NUMEN project: Exploring key aspects of neutrinoless double beta decay by nuclear reactions, F.C. and C. Agodi, Research Outreach 107 (2019) 6-9, ISSN 2517-701X” (view on the web > 130000, Twitter > 50000, Facebook >30000)
• Co-Author of 6 articles published by “Il Sole 24 ore” and “La Sicilia” newspaper distributed in Italy
• Interviewed by the journalist Sylvie Coyaud in the program “Le Oche” of the “Radio Popolare” national radio broadcast (http://www.radiopopolare.it/podcast/le-oche-di-ven-0304/)
• Interviewed twice by Radio Zammù broadcast of the Catania University http://www.radiozammu.it/cnnp2017-prof-ri-agodi-cappuzzello-a-catania-per-condividere-e-spingere-oltre-la-conoscenza.htm
• Author of one article in the “Bollettino di Ateneo” journal of the Catania University (http://bollettino.unict.it/articoli/la-risonanza-gigante-di-pairing)
• The scientific article F.C. et al. Nature Comm. 6 (2015) 6743 was the object of a dedicated blog in the “La Repubblica D” national on-line news-paper, (http://ocasapiens-dweb.blogautore.repubblica.it/2015/04/03/le-oche-9-good-vibrations/)
• Co-Author of F.C et al. “La Risonanza Gigante di Pairing nei nuclei atomici: un nuovo ballo di gruppo”, Scienze e Ricerche N.39 (2016). http://www.scienze-ricerche.it/?p=11152
Prices and awards
• Awarded for Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing from Nucl. Phys. A in 2015
• Awarded for Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing from Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A in 2016