APS announces the prizewinners for 2007
The American Physical Society (APS) has announced its awards for 2007, naming many recipients who work in particle physics and related fields.
The 2007 W K H Panofsky Prize in experimental particle physics, which aims to recognize and encourage outstanding achievements in the field, goes to Italo Mannelli of the University of Pisa/INFN, Heinrich Wahl, of the University of Ferrara and CERN, and Bruce Winstein of the University of Chicago. The award cites their "leadership in the series of experiments that resulted in a multitude of precision measurements of properties of neutral K mesons, most notably the discovery of direct CP violation".
The Tom W Bonner Prize for outstanding experimental research in nuclear physics is awarded to Stuart J Freedman of the University of California, Berkeley. He won the prize for "contributions to neutrino physics and the study of weak interactions, in particular for his leading role in the KamLAND experiment, as well as for his work on precision measurements of the beta decay of the neutron".
In theoretical physics, the J J Sakurai Prize for outstanding achievement in particle physics is awarded to SLAC's Stanley Brodsky for "applications of perturbative quantum field theory to critical questions of elementary-particle physics, in particular, to the analysis of hard exclusive strong interaction processes". The Dannie Heineman Prize for mathematical physics goes to Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and Joseph Polchinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara. They receive this award for "profound developments in mathematical physics that have illuminated interconnections and launched major research areas in quantum field theory, string theory, and gravity".
The Hans A Bethe prize recognizes outstanding work in astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics or closely related fields. The 2007 award goes to James R Wilson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for "work in nuclear astrophysics and numerical work on supernovae core collapse, neutrino transport and shock propagation". The citation adds that "his codes re-energized supernovae shocks, launched numerical relativity and magnetically driven jets".
In another area of particle astrophysics, the Einstein prize for accomplishments in gravitational physics goes to Ronald Drever of the California Institute of Technology and Rainer Weiss of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for "fundamental contributions to the development of gravitational-wave detectors based on optical interferometry, leading to the successful operation of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory". Gravitational-wave research also features in the Edward A Bouchet award, which recognizes a distinguished minority physicist. This goes to Gabriela Gonzalez of Louisiana State University for "her significant impact on the field of gravitation-wave physics through her many important technical and scientific contributions to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and for communicating the excitement of this field to the scientific community and the public".
In observational cosmology Amy Barger of the University of Wisconsin-Madison receives the Maria Goeppert-Meyer award for outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career. She receives the award for "her pioneering efforts in using observational cosmology to provide new insight into the evolution of black holes, star formation rates and galaxies". Lisa Randall of Harvard University receives the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize for a most outstanding contribution to physics for "her pioneering work on particle physics and cosmology, and her tireless efforts to inspire and engage both specialist and non-specialist, by allegory and fact through publications and presentations".
The Robert R Wilson Prize is awarded for achievement in the physics of particle accelerators. For 2007 this goes to Lee C Teng of Argonne National Laboratory for the "invention of resonant extraction and transition crossing techniques critical to hadron synchrotrons and storage rings, for early and continued development of linear matrix theory of particle beams, and for leadership in the realization of a facility for radiation therapy with protons". Wilson was the first to propose proton therapy 60 years ago (see CERN Courier December 2006 p24).
In August, the APS awarded the 2006 James Clerk Maxwell prize for plasma physics to Chandrasekhar Joshi, of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) for "insight and leadership in applying plasma concepts to high-energy electron and positron acceleration, and for his creative exploration of related aspects of plasma physics". Now the Nicholas Metropolis Award for outstanding doctoral-thesis work in computational physics goes to Chengkun Huang, also of UCLA. He is rewarded for "his innovative work in plasma physics that led to the development of the QuickPIC code that has revolutionized the simulation of plasma-based accelerator research". Meanwhile, the award for outstanding doctoral-thesis work in plasma physics, the Marshall N Rosenbluth award, goes to Cameron Geddes of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for "experimental and computational studies of channel-guided laser-wakefield accelerators" (CERN Courier November 2006 p5).
Dissertation awards also recognise work in several areas of particle physics. The dissertation award of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics goes to Brian C Odom of the University of Chicago, for the "measurement of the electron g-factor in a sub-Kelvin cylindrical cavity" (CERN Courier October 2006 p35). The Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics goes to Kathryn K S Miknaitis of the University of Washington, for her work on salt-phase data from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory to identify day–night variations in the rate of neutrino interactions, and to Magdalena Djordjevic of Columbia University for her work on a theoretical treatment of heavy-quark energy loss in a strongly interacting quark–gluon plasma in which the gluon radiative energy loss was solved to all orders in opacity.