James V Allaby 1936–2009
Jim Allaby, a well known figure at CERN and in the international particle physics community passed away on 7 April.
Jim was born in Preston, England, in October 1936. After obtaining a first degree in physics at King's College, London, he went to Liverpool to study for his PhD at the university's synchrocyclotron. This was his first proton–proton scattering experiment and was the start of a lifelong friendship with Bert Diddens, who was there as a CERN fellow.
In the early 1960s Jim moved to SLAC where he worked with Dave Ritson on electron inelastic scattering. Ritson greatly appreciated Jim's calm and systematic approach to any kind of problem that he was confronted with. It was natural for Jim to visit SLAC later and for Ritson to join the DELPHI collaboration in the 1990s.
Jim came to CERN in 1965 and joined the group of Giuseppe Cocconi, Bert Diddens and Alan Wetherell, who were preparing proton–proton scattering experiments in a slowly extracted proton beam at the highest PS energies. This led to the discovery of structures in large-angle scattering and the "black disc" behaviour of elastic scattering.
In 1968 a CERN group – formed around Alan, Bert and Jim – initiated a collaboration to study particle production and the total hadron–hadron cross-section at the new 70 GeV accelerator of the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP) at Protvino, near Serpukhov. Jim took this mission very seriously and learned Russian much better than the others did. The bureaucracy was tough; the people in Protvino were not allowed non-professional contact with the CERN team, but Jim excelled in overcoming this, thanks to his character, social skills and knowledge of the language. His role in the development of relations with eastern Europe continued during the time of the SPS at CERN, when he served on the Joint Scientific Committee for co-operation between CERN and IHEP. Later he was co-chairman on a similar committee for co-operation between CERN and JINR.
In 1970 the CERN group joined the Rome–ISS (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) group, which had proposed measuring small-angle elastic scattering at the nearly completed Intersecting Storage Rings, using the technique that became known as "Roman pots". Jim participated in the initial phase of the experiment, which brought several discoveries including the rising proton–proton cross-section. However, he was becoming more involved in serving the physics community, as PS co-ordinator in 1970 and later as a member of the team preparing the SPS experimental programme. John Adams, then director-general, appointed Jim as physics co-ordinator for this programme, working in close collaboration with the Experimental Areas Groups, in charge of designing the areas and the beams. This fruitful co-operation led to the construction of the initial complement of beams with the required particle detection and identification devices. Here Jim displayed his very special qualities, by implementing his own vision, but always making reasonable compromises and decisions without upsetting his partners.
His own interest at the SPS was in studies of the neutrino neutral-current interactions performed by the CERN–Hamburg–Amsterdam–Rome–Moscow (CHARM) collaboration. These included tests of the nature of the charged-current interactions, which were based on the measurement of the polarization of muons produced upstream in the iron calorimeter of the CDHS experiment. This required transforming CHARM's 400 tonne marble calorimeter into a muon polarimeter. Jim was very active in the construction of the detector and in this transformation in particular.
At the end of the 1970s Jim became one of the founding fathers of the DELPHI experiment. He played an important role in the genesis of the ring-imaging Cherenkov detector during the phase that led from the initial spherical design to the final cylindrical shape. DELPHI was the first collaboration to form an interdivisional group at CERN and to separate the responsibilities of the leader of the "CERN team" from the ones of the spokesman. Jim covered the role of team leader for many years with his usual dedication, efficiency and friendly style of management. In parallel he led the DELPHI Data Acquisition Project from the design to the implementation phase in 1989.
Jim was nominated division leader when Carlo Rubbia was director-general, and in this role continued his strong support for the programme at the Large Electron–Positron (LEP) collider. He was also put in charge of relations with CERN's non-member states.
After completing his term as division leader, Jim joined the L3 collaboration at LEP. He made important contributions to many of the collaboration's publications and was chairman of the L3 Publication Board. After L3 he worked on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), participating in the preparations for the experiment's first shuttle flight and for the AMS mission on the International Space Station.
After retirement he became a member of the Committee of the CERN–ESO Pensioner's Association, once more serving the community – this time the CERN pensioners and their family members.
We share our sorrow with his family and we convey our deepest condolences and sympathy to Jean and Mark.
His colleagues and friends.