München 2009 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 6: History and Philosophy of Astroparticle Physics

AGPhil 6.2: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 12, 2009, 14:45–15:15, M014

Emergence of astroparticle physics: a historical approach — •Bernard Revaz — Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculare, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4

Since 20 years, the physics of the particles of the cosmos enjoys a renewed interest, as seen from numerous large experiments, in operation or foreseen, in the search of new weakly interactive particles, in the astronomy based on new *messengers* like neutrinos, or the in the study of the so called *violent* universe. Although this field shares the general thematic of the *cosmic rays* that exists since the beginning of the 20th century, it has distinctive features that justified for its proponents a clear separation with the cosmic rays community as witnessed by the creation of the neologism *astroparticle physics*. Astroparticle physics emerged from a network of loosely connected medium scale experiments, developed principally as a redeployment of accelerator particle physics techniques, in a post cold war political context characterized by a growing criticism against the hierarchical model inherited from the post WWII. From an epistemological point of view, the emerging field of astroparticle physics is characterized by local epistemologies that are used as a pragmatic resource, among others, by the scientists acting in the field. These local epistemologies constrast with the unifying perspective reconciling general relativity and quantum field theories that serves as the long term horizon of the field.