Faces & Places
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CERN Courier July/August 2014 A PASSION FOR PERFECTION Faces & Places C OLLABORATION Turkey to become associate member state of CERN On 12 May, CERN and Turkey signed an agreement admitting Turkey to CERN associate membership, subject to ratifi cation by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey – the Meclis. Turkey was granted observer status at CERN in 1961, and Turkish physicists are today active in the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments at the LHC. They are also involved with CAST, NA63 and OPERA, as well as with experiments at the ISOLDE facility. Turkey operates a Tier-2 centre of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, and 110 Turkish scientists are registered users of CERN’s facilities. Turkey’s associate membership will allow it to attend CERN Council meetings and open up industrial collaborations. Turkish scientists can also become CERN staff Taner Yildiz, Turkish minister for energy and natural resources, left, and CERN’s members and participate in CERN’s training director-general, Rolf Heuer, together with the signed agreement. (Image credit: and career-development programmes. CERN-PHOTO-201405-100-89.) A PPOINTMENTS Harry Weerts, in charge of physical science All change at Argonne and engineering at Argonne. (Image credit: ANL.) Harry Weerts has been named as the interim CERN and on hadron-collider physics with associate laboratory director for physical the D0 experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron, sciences and engineering at Argonne serving as spokesperson for the experiment National Laboratory. Director of Argonne’s for six years. Before coming to Argonne, high-energy-physics division, he now he spent 23 years on the physics faculty at oversees the laboratory’s interdisciplinary Michigan State University. research programmes in physics, chemistry, At the same time, the high-energy-physics material science and nanotechnology. He deputy director, Rik Yoshida, has agreed Vacuum solutions takes over from Peter Littlewood, who has to serve as interim director for the division. become director of the laboratory. Yoshida has been a researcher at both the LHC Weerts’ recent research has focused on detector concepts for a linear collider. at CERN and at DESY, where he served as the from a single source linear-collider physics and developing Previously, he worked in neutrino physics at spokesperson of the ZEUS experiment. Roberto Battiston, new president of the ASI. Battiston to head (Image credit: Michele Famiglietti/ Pfeiffer Vacuum stands for innovative and custom vacuum solutions worldwide, SpacePart12.) technological perfection, competent advice and reliable service. We are the only Italian Space Agency supplier of vacuum technology that provides a complete product portfolio: recently, on the study of cosmic rays in space. In particular, he is deputy spokesperson for ■ Pumps for vacuum generation up to 10-13 hPa Stefania Giannini, minister of education, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, installed ■ Vacuum measurement and analysis equipment university and research, has appointed on the International Space Station in May ■ Leak detectors and leak testing systems Roberto Battiston as president of the Italian 2011 (CERN Courier October 2013 p22). ■ System technology and contamination management solutions Space Agency (ASI). Battiston, who succeeds Aldo Sandulli, was ■ Chambers and components A graduate of the Scuola Normale of identifi ed through a procedure carried out by Pisa, Battiston is professor of experimental a selection committee set up last February. Are you looking for a perfect vacuum solution? Please contact us: physics at the University of Trento, where he worked for more than 30 years, on behalf of From a total of 55 applications, the committee moved in 2012 to set up a new institute for INFN, within international collaborations selected fi ve candidates that were presented to Pfeiffer Vacuum GmbH · Headquarters/Germany astroparticle physics and technology. He has in experimental particle physics and, more the minister for her choice. T +49 6441 802-0 · F +49 6441 802-1202 · [email protected] www.pfeiffer-vacuum.com 35 14.02.12_PhysicsWorld_3_Prod_GB_213x282.indd 1 12.02.14 16:46 CERNCOURIER www. V OLUME 5 4 N UMBER 6 J ULY /A UGUST 2 0 1 4 CERN Courier July/August 2014 CERN Courier July/August 2014 Faces & Places Faces & Places A WARDS Markov Prize recognizes pioneers in Knighthoods for Kibble and Virdee theoretical astrophysics and cosmology Tom Kibble and Tejinder (Jim) Virdee, both of Imperial College London – and both Igor Tkachev, of the Institute for Nuclear astrophysics and cosmology. Tkachev well known for their roles in the prediction Research (INR) of the Russian Academy of has made signifi cant contributions to the and detection of a Higgs boson – have been Sciences (RAS), Moscow, and Alexander development of the theory of the early awarded the UK’s highest honour in the 2014 Dolgov, of the Alikhanov Institute for universe, while Dolgov elaborated the Queen’s birthday honours. Theoretical and Experimental Physics, kinetic theory of elementary particles, Kibble, who receives a knighthood for Moscow, and INFN, have been awarded the including neutrinos, in the expanding “services to physics”, is distinguished for 2014 Markov Prize. They received the award universe. The Markov Prize was established his ground-breaking research in theoretical at the 2014 Markov Readings, held at the INR by INR RAS in commemoration of Moisey physics across nearly six decades. He is one on 14 May, for “pioneering works in the fi eld Markov, who made pioneering contributions Left to right: The 2014 Markov Prize of the theoretical physicists whose work in Jim Virdee, right, shows Tom Kibble the of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology”. to neutrino physics, as well as to physics at laureates, Igor Tkachev and Alexander RF Power? the early 1960s became a key piece of the results from CMS on the discovery of a The laureates are both well known in the boundary between particle physics and Dolgov, with the director of INR, Victor Standard Model, through giving mass to the Higgs boson, announced in July 2012. the fi elds of elementary particle physics, cosmology. Matveev. (Image credit: INR.) W and Z bosons via a symmetry-breaking (Image credit: M Sanch/Imperial College.) mechanism that would require a new particle, S YMPOSIUM dubbed the Higgs boson. He has also made “services to science”, also recognizes his signifi cant contributions to the study of the work campaigning for and promoting better Berkeley honours Nygren’s ingenuity dynamics of symmetry breaking near phase science education in Africa and India. transitions with many applications, including In the same honours list, David Delpy, the formation of structure in the universe and chief executive of the Engineering and David (Dave) Nygren, of Lawrence high energy. That history was the subject vortices in helium-3. Physical Science Research Council Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), of a talk and a discussion by a panel of six Virdee spearheaded the concept and (EPSRC) until March this year, received the has a distinguished record of detector- veterans (“survivors”) of the diffi culties design of the Compact Muon Solenoid honour of Commander of the British Empire instrumentation inventions and innovations, and successes of prototyping, building and (CMS) experiment, which together (CBE) “for service to engineering and which have transformed research in particle operating the TPC. with ATLAS found the fi rst evidence scientifi c research”. EPSRC is responsible and nuclear physics and in cosmology. To TPCs were essential elements in the for the existence of a Higgs boson in for funding the UK’s contributions to honour him for his ingenious designs, mark ALEPH and DELPHI experiments at 2012. Virdee oversaw the construction research in nuclear physics at CERN, in his impending retirement and, incidentally, CERN’s Large Electron–Positron collider of CMS and was deputy spokesperson particular at the ISOLDE facility, the celebrate his 75th birthday, more than and are now used in ALICE at the LHC, then spokesperson for the collaboration neutron time-of-fl ight facility and the 150 physicists from around the world ICARUS (fi lled with liquid argon rather until 2010. His knighthood, awarded for Antiproton Decelerator. gathered at LBNL on 2–3 May for The Art than gas) at CERN and the Gran Sasso of Experiment – A Symposium to Celebrate National Laboratory, and STAR at the Forty Years of Advances 1974–2014. Brookhaven National Laboratory. These and Welcomes from the director of LBNL’s other gaseous-detector technologies were physics division, Natalie Roe, and laboratory the subjects of talks, including one on the director, Paul Alivisatos, were followed by history of the fi eld – which is still evolving Dave Nygren: “inspirational and wise speakers who were invited to “look at current brilliantly with ever-improving performance beyond his years”. (Image credit: Jerry and emerging topics at the interface between 45 years after having been introduced to Przybylski.) RF Solutions. physics and experimental techniques and particle physics – that concluded with “...to methods, for subjects related to Dave’s be continued”. extensive international NEXT collaboration. research”. Between them, they covered a TPCs are central to a number of past, Nygren’s early work on pixel detectors varied selection of topical subjects to show current and proposed approaches to settle two for the ill-fated Superconducting Super “ways in which physics is currently, or will of the most perplexing problems to have beset Collider (SSC) led to the development be, enabled by new and creative innovations science for some years – the nature of dark of smart pixel arrays, as now used in the in instrumentation and methods”. To matter and of neutrinos. Experiments that ATLAS detector’s precision-tracking system recognize his work on CP violation, Nygren’s use TPC technology in searches for weakly at the LHC. Pixel history, current status early career was recalled by his mentor and interacting massive particles (WIMPs), and R&D were reported by a speaker who then colleague, Jack Steinberger.