Project of the Virtual Institute of Astroparticle Physics (VIA)

Dear Colleagues,

The recent exciting progress in precision cosmology and cosmic ray physics (high energy gamma and charged particle) as well as the forthcoming developments in particle physics (LHC) and multimessenger astronomy involving, together with the observation in the whole range of electromagnetic spectrum detection of gravitational waves, cosmic-ray components and neutrinos, promise a large amount of new information and discoveries in the coming years.

The results of these experiments have a direct impact on the development of astroparticle models, which also give direct feedback to the running experiments for the search of new effects or particles following from these models.

Theoretical analysis of these results will have an impact on the fundamental knowledge on the structure of the microworld and universe and on the fundamental physical laws of nature.

The Virtual Institute of Astroparticle Physics (VIA) aims to support the development of this rapidly developing field.

The activity of the Institute takes place through its website http://viavca.in2p3.fr/site.html in a form of:

• A regular series of lectures on the main problems and newest results in astroparticle physics, cosmology, particle physics, astrophysics, and related topics;
• Support for online remote presentations and transmissions or streaming of talks at seminars and conferences;
• Open online courses on cosmoparticle physics supported by supervision of works on students’ thesis’ on VIA Forum and their remote evaluation;
• Regular online meetings and collaborative work of the SFEDU Laboratory of cosmoparticle studies of structure and dynamics of Galaxy;
• Continuous storage of records of VIA videoconferences on VIA library and support of the platform for their discussion on VIA Forum.

Collaboration with Universe will provide a basis for propagation of news and results of studies of fundamental relationship of cosmology and particle physics, including but not limited to the physical nature of inflation, baryosynthesis, dark matter/energy, multimessenger cosmological probes of this relationship in primordial gravitational waves, primordial black holes and other primordial structures, and direct and indirect effects of various components of dark matter in combination with direct and indirect experimental probes for new physics. The involvement of young scientists in this research would be of special interest. The year 2021 has been announced by UNESCO as the year of A. D. Sakharov, and development of his legacy in cosmoparticle physics can take special place both in the program of VIA events and in Universe.

Prof. Dr. Konstantin Belotsky
Prof. Dr. Vitaly Beylin
Prof. Dr. Maxim Yu. Khlopov
Prof. Dr. Dmitri Semikoz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Universe is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.