Inauguration of IJCLab

Abstract

On Monday, 16 May 2022, in Orsay, France, the Laboratoire de physique des deux infinis— Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab) was officially inaugurated in the presence of representatives of its governing bodies (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (CNRS/IN2P3), Université Paris-Saclay, and Université Paris Cité) and members of the laboratory. Created in 2020, following the merger of five laboratories of the ParisSaclay cluster, IJCLab is now one of the most important European laboratories, particularly in nuclear physics, highenergy physics, and accelerator physics. The research conducted there has contributed to major international discoveries in the physics of the infinitely large and the infinitely small. On nearly 50,000 m 2 of premises, IJCLab brings together approximately 750 people, including 230 researchers, 350 engineers and technicians, and 110 Ph.D. students. The laboratory also has all the expertise needed to design and build accelerators and detectors, and to exploit and analyze the data obtained from them, a combination of know-how that is not often found in academic laboratories and that is regularly called on by industry. IJCLab’s scientific activities are structured into seven scientific departments: Astroparticles, Astrophysics, and Cosmology; Accelerator Physics; High Energy Physics; Nuclear Physics; Theoretical Physics; Energy and Environment; and Health. The work of these teams is carried out not only within their departments, but also in a more transverse manner, in connection with the other scientific departments, the engineering department, and/or the IJCLab platforms. As the offspring of the former Institut de Physique Nucléaire (IPN) and Centre des Sciences Nucléaire des Sciences de la Matière (CSNSM) laboratories, IJCLab continues to have a strong and increasing impact on Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) themes thanks to its capacities in designing and building detectors and accelerators. At the same time, IJCLab has a comparable influence on high-energy physics (as it embeds the former Laboratoire de l’Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL) laboratory) and it takes a growing leadership in astrophysics and cosmological activities. IJCLab also has a strong theoretical department with a wide range of interests, including high-energy, hadronic and nuclear physics. IJCLab hosts a large number of platforms, which vary greatly in size and interaction with the outside world. Some have strong connections with the Nupecc community (ALTO, Supratech, JANNuS-SCALP-Andromède). The inauguration was an opportunity for the guests of the laboratory to highlight the importance of this laboratory “out of the ordinary” in terms of its size and its scientific and technical impact. After the words of the heads of the CNRS, the Université Paris-Saclay, and the Université Paris Cité, Achille Stocchi, the director of IJCLab, presented the laboratory. The videos of the speeches of eight international personalities were then projected, in order to share their vision for the future of IJCLab with the participants of this inauguration. The president of CNRS, Alain Petit, and the president of the Université Paris-Saclay, Sylvie Retailleau, then unveiled sculptures representing the two infinities, in presence of Hélène Langevin-Joliot and the various speakers of the afternoon (Figure 1). The two sculptures will be erected next to the buildings that represent the "frontiers" of the laboratory on the Orsay campus. The afternoon ended with a cocktail party for the IJCLab staff and the guests of the inauguration ceremony.