Passo del Tonale – The Story of a Winter School
Fazlu Rahman
The journey started around 7 PM CET from the Trento station. The white Volvo bus began ascending the curly routes and curvy paths, while we were busy making new friends. We were around fifty students, doing masters and PhD in different parts of the globe, came to attend the 13th version of Tonale Winter School on Cosmology. Being my first trip to Europe, everything was exhilarating for me. Climbing 1800 m above the sea-level for 90 minutes, the bus halted in front of Hotel Adamello, our new home for the next few days in Passo del Tonale. Outside was -15 centigrade and we all ran into the hotel.
The whole preparation for this European trip was in a hurry. I got my Schengen VISA approved only a few hours before the flight. Forty hours of travel, many sleepless nights and the first travel to a different continent – attending the school being exhausted would be of less worth. Thanks to my planning, I got one whole Sunday to relax and explore the serene town of Trento, known for sky-touching cathedrals and historical monuments in the Alpine valley of Northern Italy. After spending a pleasant evening on the banks of river Adige, I rushed to the station to join the team.
The misty morning of Monday welcomed us with the warmth of the Adamello Cappuccino. Tonale in its white attire was ready for its winter visitors. Tonale pass connects Trentino with Lombardy and is one of the best skiing sites in the Alps. It is the beginning of the Christmas holidays and we could see skiers in the distant top. A few hotels, one market store, skiing office and some apartments, the village is all set for a magical winter experience. Led by our highly energetic hosts, a few young postdocs working in different parts of Europe, we started walking to the venue set up 5 min away from the hotel.
Four days, hot topics and a winter school in its exact form – this is all about the Tonale winter school. With the theme – ‘Theory for observers, Observations for theorists’, the winter school annually brings experts in various areas of cosmology to discuss the updated details of the field. This is particularly useful for masters and early PhD students, to get to know the active topics of study and design their research goals. I could say that our zestful organisers could properly convey that vibe of activism to us.
The 2019 version was especially exciting for me – one major discussion was about CMB polarization and foregrounds which is closely related to my thesis. The speaker, Mathieu Remazeilles from Jodrell Bank is very active in this field and some of my works are based on the sky-maps prepared by him. I found this as the best opportunity to learn directly from him. It went exactly as per the plan, Mathieu taught me a lot of new things and shared his own experience in dealing with CMB data pipelines. The other topics were also not of less exciting: neutrino cosmology, non-linear perturbation theory and dark energy observations, and a bunch of good speakers.
The style of the school was interesting. Organisers designed it in such a way that participants get the best out of it. Four sets of lectures in the morning, tutorial sessions in the evening. Post-lunch session was free, giving participants the chance to explore the winter of Tonale – skiing, snowboarding, snow walks etc. For the working groups in the evening, we were split into four groups – CMB, neutrino, dark energy and perturbation theory. In our CMB group, Mathieu asked us to work out related problems and discussed topics not covered in the morning sessions. It was kept highly interactive and the Q/A session went till the dinner time.
Post dinner sessions were for poster display and informal discussions. Speakers, postdocs and students across the globe sharing their exciting works and vivid research stories – what more can we expect from any school. Adding to the happiness, I could bag the best poster award and convey to a larger audience, the kind of works I am doing at IIA. Our field is relatively new, we usually do not find people working in it. Thank you, Tonale!! You didn’t disappoint me at all. I got a few friends engaging with the exact stuff I am studying about.
Distinct sessions made this school unique. One informal post-dinner session was for the speakers and post-docs to tell us their life stories, what motivated them to pursue their career, the success and hurdles, and their guidance for the budding researchers. We had a CV feedback session on the last day. Students could interact with the experts – speakers and post-docs – showing our CV, collecting their suggestions on how to improve our academic records to apply for positions and to present it perfectly.
And, it was the time to hasta la vista. Of course, the cosy accommodation and the yummy Italian cuisines served made the event unforgettable. The regional dinner of Thursday night marked the official valediction of the program. Amidst the heavy snowfall of Friday morning, our bus slowly started descending the hill, us being thankful for those wonderful days and myself excited about the next week’s meeting at Munich.
About the author
Fazlu Rahman is a Senior Research Fellow at IIA working in observational Cosmology.
