Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Ukraine, Russia and Astrophysics

My posts about scientists' response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have been mostly focused on particle physics, since CERN has notably struggled to craft an appropriate response.  Nowhere else is the conflict between science as a driver of international cooperation, and the need to stand up against an immoral invasion so stark.    

But, other physicists have also faced conflicts over this.  In high-energy neutrino astrophysics, there was less collaboration between Russian and Western scientists, but there were still many discussions about appropriate responses.  

IceCube had no members whose primary affiliation was Russian.  Two IceCube physicists had secondary affiliations with Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, but they both dropped these connections shortly after the invasion.   

The Baikal-GVD experiment (in Lake Baikal) was almost entirely Russian collaborators.  Some long-time collaborators from what used to be East Germany dropped out.   Both the Baikal-GVD and IceCube responses were made relatively quietly. 

In contrast, the mostly-European KM3NeT collaboration (building two arrays in the Mediterranean) has taken a public stance.  They have had Russian collaborators in past years, but do not appear to do so now.  Nevertheless, they made a clear statement to #StandwithUkraine, suspending all institutional cooperation with science organizations in Russia.   Their statement, highlighted on their main web page is nicely nuanced, continuing "We deeply believe that science is to serve peace and understanding, and we therefore leave private communication channels open to our colleagues with Russian affiliation, of whom many have stood up against the war." 

 Photo: a KM3NeT string, waiting for deployment.  Credit: KM3NeT Collaboration.
 
The Global Neutrino Networks newsletter, edited by Christian Spiering (from DESY-Zeuthen, near Berlin)  has done a very nice job of covering the astrophysicists response to the Russian invasion.  Back issues of the newsletter are available here.