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The 2^nd Particle Physics School in South-East Asia held in Indonesia

October 9, 2012

From 16 to 22 September, the 2nd Particle Physics School in South-East Asia (PPSSEA) was held at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. About fifty students from five countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, participated in this school.

This weeklong school was co-hosted by UGM, National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), Indonesian Theoretical Physicist Group (GFTI), and KEK. Professor Masanori Yamauchi, Director of KEK’s Institute of Particle and Nuclear Study, served as the chair of the school. Yamauchi said, “I was so impressed by the participant’s enthusiasms toward learning something new.”

The purpose of PPSSEA is to provide promising young researchers with the opportunity to study recent developments in the fields of elementary particle physics and accelerator research. It also aims to promote international friendship and cooperation among young students of the next generation in South-East Asia. The school was open to PhD students, MSc students, and junior post-docs, typically less than two years after completing their PhD.

At the school, an emphasis was put on programs with hands-on lectures and a presentation session.

In hands-on sessions on detectors, school participants assembled wire chambers, which are devices that detect particles. The participants then used their assembled detectors in the experiment classes. For most of the participants, this was their first hands-on experience with physics experiments. One of the participants said, “I am deeply impressed by all the lectures, not only the hands-on classes but also the theory and experiment lectures.

For the presentation session, the participants were divided into five groups, according to their area of research interest: Particle Physics Theory, Particle Physics Experiment, Detector, Accelerator, and Wire Chamber Experiment. Each group gave a presentation on the last day of the school, and all the groups gave excellent presentations. “We cannot expect immediate outcomes from efforts like PPSSEA. I believe that continuous effort will lead to fostering of well-trained scientists in the fields of particle physics, and thus eventually raise the level of the science in south-east Asia,” Yamauchi said.

The first PPSSEA was successfully launched at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in March last year. After the first school, scientists from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have participated in the Belle II experimental group at KEK. “The school also contributes to promote the research cooperation between KEK and the laboratories in South-East Asian countries,” said Yamauchi.