Two researchers from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) working in the Valencia region have been selected by the BBVA Foundation to receive two of the 10 Leonardo Fellowships in Physics and Chemistry for the 2024 special call. Alfonso García Soto and Alfonso Carrillo del Teso receive a financial grant of 50,000 euros each to develop their projects, related to sustainable mobility and astroparticle physics, in two of the four centers of excellence that CSIC has in the community, the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC), located in the scientific-academic area of the Science Park of the University of Valencia, and the Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIC-UPV).
Alfonso García will develop a project to try to determine the origin of the highest energy neutrino ever detected by an experiment on Earth. In February 2023, the KM3NeT/ARCA detector, submerged in the Mediterranean Sea near Sicily, captured an extraordinary event characterized by unprecedented light emission. The study of this phenomenon, identified as KM3-230213A, determined that it corresponds to the highest energy neutrino detected to date, exceeding 100 petaelectronvolts (PeV). The members of the VEGA group of the Institute of Corpuscular Physics participated in the discovery and its publication, cover of the magazine Nature.
Garcia will develop artificial intelligence tools to identify what type of neutrino originated the KM3-230213A event. Neutrinos are elementary particles capable of transforming or oscillating during their path in one of the three known types (electronic, muonic and tauonic), which correspond to the three families of elementary particles (flavors, in particle physics). The study is pioneering, since, until this event was detected, no neutrino interaction capable of generating a muon or tau particle with such energy had been recorded.
The interesting thing, notes the IFIC researcher, is that "at these energies, both muon and tau can pass through the detector before decaying, leaving a similar light pattern. However, through machine learning techniques it is possible to discern the identity of this particle. If it were a tau, originated by the interaction of a tauonic neutrino, it would represent the first evidence of transition of flavors to these energies".
Alfonso García Soto has a degree in Physics from the University of Granada and completed his PhD at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE), where he worked on measuring the effective section of neutrinos in the nearby detector of the T2K experiment (Japan). Between 2018 and 2021 he was a postdoctoral researcher at NIKHEF (Netherlands), starting his work in the study of high-energy neutrinos. In 2021, his UNOS project received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, developing it for three years at Harvard University (USA) and the IFIC of Valencia. Since mid-2024 he is a CSIC researcher at the IFIC.
"These energies, both muon and tau can pass through the detector before decay, leaving a similar light pattern. However, through machine learning techniques it is possible to discern the identity of this particle. If it were a tau, originated by the interaction of a tauonic neutrino, it would represent the first evidence of transition of flavors to these energies", Alfonso García Soto, researcher at IFIC
Alfonso Carrillo will use this grant to develop the SOLFUEL project, advanced materials for converting solar energy into green fuels. Using solar concentration, a process already used to generate electricity, high temperatures are reached that allow certain materials to release and capture oxygen, a key process for converting water and carbon dioxide (CO ) into hydrogen and synthetic fuels.
Cerium oxide is the most widely used material for this procedure, but its oxygen release capacity needs to be increased. Therefore, the SOLFUEL project proposes a new strategy to improve this process by designing advanced materials based on nanostructures that optimize the production of clean fuels. As a result, the release of oxygen would be accelerated and solar energy conversion efficiency increased.
The main objective of the BBVA Foundation’s Leonardo Grants is to promote science and culture of excellence, promoting their impact on society. The programme offers ample scope for personal and innovative projects. In the 2024 call, 20 highly innovative projects in physics, chemistry and engineering have been selected from a total of 493 applications received (267 in physics and chemistry and 226 in engineering). These projects are individual in character and are carried out by Spanish research centres, by researchers at a key point in their professional careers: people between 30 and 45 years of age, at an intermediate stage in their research career.
Source: Delegation CSIC Comunitat Valenciana