Pierre Lapostolle (1922-2004)
Pierre Lapostolle died in June 2004 at the age of 82 in Paris. He was one of the leading European accelerator physicists who made significant contributions to the development and understanding of linear accelerators, in particular of their beam dynamics.
After attending the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, Pierre continued his studies at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Télécommunications and defended his thesis in 1947, while working for the Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications (CNET). Louis de Broglie was the president of the jury.
In 1953, François Perrin, the French delegate to CERN Council, convinced Pierre, who had become leader of the Electronics Division of CNET, to join CERN for a short period. It turned out that he would stay at CERN for 17 years while being detached from CNET! Hired by John Adams, Pierre was quickly recognized as an outstanding physicist. He served as leader of the PS Linac Group in 1958 and as leader of the Synchro-Cyclotron Division from 1960 to 1962.
Pierre made numerous contributions to the development of analytical approaches and numerical methods for the calculations of particle dynamics in linear accelerators. These treatments are included in many of the computer codes in use today for the design of linear accelerators. His publications have become the Bible for generations of designers and engineers of proton and ion linear accelerators.
From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s Pierre also collaborated with Saclay and Orsay on studies for various accelerator projects, and he contributed to the design, construction and commissioning of a new injector - a 20 MeV proton linac - for the Saturne synchrotron at Saclay.
In 1971, Pierre decided to return to CNET. Despite the fact that he had many responsibilities in important bodies in France, for example scientific director of CNET and scientific advisor for GANIL, he continued his scientific work with great perseverance. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to CERN, lecturing and actively contributing to the development of computational tools. His competence and deep insight, combined with great rigour, were also very much appreciated in the US, in particular by the linear-accelerator experts at LANL, with whom he collaborated very fruitfully over the years.
Pierre is remembered not only as a very talented accelerator physicist who had a significant impact on the field, but also for his personality. His enthusiasm for physics, his generosity, modesty and noble, unassuming attitude deeply impressed all colleagues who had the privilege and pleasure to be taught by him and to work with him.
Kurt Hübner and colleagues, CERN.
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Remembering the J/Ψ
I read with great interest the account by Frank Close of the day the news of the J/Ψ discovery arrived at CERN (see CERN Courier December 2004 p25). I would like to add two remarks.
Frank speaks of Jean-Jacques Aubert being called "professor" by Jack Steinberger, and then really becoming a professor. I happen to have been involved in this. My friend, the late Tony Visconti, co-founder with Daniel Kastler of the Centre de Physique Theorique in Marseilles, wanted someone to start a group of experimental high-energy physics in Marseilles. After a previous unsuccessful attempt, he turned to Jean-Jacques, but for this Jean-Jacques had to become a professor in Marseilles. I did some lobbying for that and in the end, Tony and I succeeded. Everybody knows that the lab that Jean-Jacques built in Marseilles was a great success.
Concerning the week of hesitation between the ccbar bound state and the Z0, I heard that all the distinguished theoreticians of the Rome group were inclined towards the Z0. The energy of the Frascati machine had been upgraded after the discovery of the J/Ψ and at first the experimentalists believed they were seeing a pattern that would be characteristic of interference between the Z0 and the photon. This is strange because, in 1970, Luciano Maiani, in Erice, stated that the mass of the charmed quark should be 1-2 GeV and that one should expect ccbar bound states. (These predictions are generally attributed to Gaillard, Lee and Rosner, because they were using a bona fide gauge theory, which was not the case with Glashow, Iliopoulos and Maiani). I was present at Luciano's talk, which is published in the Erice proceedings.
Andre Martin, CERN.