SUSY Success

Last week marked an important milestone for high energy physics: the 21st annual Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY) International Conference commenced where physicists from around the world came together to discuss the past year's groundbreaking results such as the LHC's monumental discovery of a Higgs boson. SUSY 2013 is the first SUSY conference to take place in Italy, making last week an exciting and important moment in ICTP's history as well. It was also one of the largest SUSY conferences ever, with 366 scientists from 54 countries participating in the event.

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More than half of the represented nations were developing countries and 17 percent of participants were women. This is a major achievement for both the conference and ICTP, which strives to promote the advancement of cutting-edge scientific research for underrepresented groups.

Comprising the conference were 30 plenary presentations from leading scientists and numerous parallel sessions on topics ranging from Dark Matter and Cosmology to SUSY Phenomenology.

In addition, the SUSY 2013 conference included a public event, which took place in Trieste's ornate Hotel Savoia Excelsior, featuring University of Rome "La Sapienza" physicist Luciano Maiani and CERN Director for Research and Scientific Computing Sergio Bertolucci in an informative discussion on what lies ahead after scientists' initial success in the search for the Higgs boson.

"Now that we have found a Higgs boson we are preparing the LHC for the next step that will allow us to explore uncharted territory," Bertolucci said. "We've finished the 100 meter dash and are now getting read for the marathon."

The public event--which was conducted in Italian--attracted local politicians, SUSY 2013 participants, ICTP faculty and the general public, including a handful of wide-eyed, aspiring five and six-year-old physicists, for an hour of science presentations followed with time for discussions, questions and answers.

This story is part of the Focus Feature on SUSY 2013. Go to the Focus Feature webpage for the complete coverage.