"Tito Maiani” 2024 Award for Master's Thesis to Federico Cacciotti
The Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei annually awards the “Tito Maiani Prize” in memory of Dr. Tito Maiani, dedicated to recognizing outstanding master's theses discussed at the universities of Rome or Pisa. This prestigious award honors research excellence in experimental studies of the Universe, including connections with elementary particle physics, the detection of gravitational waves from astrophysical and cosmological sources, and the experimental investigation of gravitational field properties.
The “Tito Maiani 2024 Prize” has been awarded to Federico Cacciotti, currently a PhD student in the 38th cycle of the Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science program at our Department, for his master's thesis entitled “Development of Kinetic Inductance Detectors for the MISTRAL and COSMO Experiments”, carried out in the laboratories of the Observational Cosmology group.
In his thesis, Federico designed and characterized arrays of kinetic inductance detectors for the MISTRAL and COSMO experiments. MISTRAL is a 90 GHz cryogenic camera developed for high angular resolution astrophysical observations, which is currently integrated at the focal plane of the Sardinia Radio Telescope for scientific commissioning. COSMO is a telescope aimed at measuring the isotropic spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background, operating at two frequency bands, 150 GHz and 250 GHz, from the Italian-French base Dome-C in Antarctica