Belgian theoretical physicist
Francois, Baron Englert
(
French:
[???l??]
; born 6 November 1932) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and 2013
Nobel Prize
laureate.
Englert is professor emeritus at the
Universite libre de Bruxelles
(ULB), where he is a member of the Service de Physique Theorique. He is also a Sackler Professor by Special Appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy at
Tel Aviv University
and a member of the Institute for Quantum Studies at
Chapman University
in
California
. He was awarded the 2010
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics
(with
Gerry Guralnik
,
C. R. Hagen
,
Tom Kibble
,
Peter Higgs
, and
Robert Brout
), the
Wolf Prize in Physics
in 2004 (with Brout and Higgs) and the High Energy and Particle Prize of the
European Physical Society
(with Brout and Higgs) in 1997 for the mechanism which unifies short and long range interactions by generating massive gauge vector bosons.
Englert has made contributions in
statistical physics
,
quantum field theory
,
cosmology
,
string theory
and
supergravity
.
[4]
He is the recipient of the 2013
Prince of Asturias Award
in technical and scientific research, together with Peter Higgs and the
CERN
.
Englert was awarded the 2013
Nobel Prize in Physics
, together with
Peter Higgs
for the discovery of the
Brout?Englert?Higgs mechanism
.
[5]
Early life
[
edit
]
Francois Englert is a Holocaust survivor.
[6]
He was born in a Belgian
Jewish family
. During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, he had to conceal his
Jewish
identity and live in orphanages and children's homes in the towns of
Dinant
,
Lustin
,
Stoumont
and, finally,
Annevoie-Rouillon
. These towns were eventually liberated by the US Army.
Academic career
[
edit
]
He graduated as an electromechanical engineer in 1955 from the
Free University of Brussels
(ULB) where he received his PhD in physical sciences in 1959. From 1959 until 1961, he worked at
Cornell University
, first as a research associate of Robert Brout and then as assistant professor. He then returned to the ULB, where he became a university professor and was joined there by Robert Brout who, in 1980, with Englert coheaded the theoretical physics group. In 1998 Englert became professor emeritus. In 1984 Englert was first appointed as a Sackler Professor by Special Appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy at
Tel-Aviv University
. Englert joined Chapman University's Institute for Quantum Studies in 2011, where he serves as a distinguished visiting professor.
Brout?Englert?Higgs?Guralnik?Hagen?Kibble mechanism
[
edit
]
[7]
Brout and Englert showed in 1964
[8]
that gauge vector fields, abelian and non-abelian, could acquire mass if empty space were endowed with a particular type of structure that one encounters in material systems. Focusing on the failure of the Goldstone theorem for gauge fields,
[9]
Higgs reached essentially the same result.
[10]
A third paper on the subject was written later in the same year by
Gerald Guralnik
,
C. R. Hagen
, and
Tom Kibble
.
[11]
The three papers written on this boson discovery by Higgs, Englert and
Brout
, and
Guralnik
,
Hagen
,
Kibble
were each recognized as milestone papers for this discovery by
Physical Review Letters
50th anniversary celebration.
[12]
While each of these famous papers took similar approaches, the contributions and differences between the
1964 PRL symmetry breaking papers
is noteworthy.
To illustrate the structure, consider a ferromagnet which is composed of atoms each equipped with a tiny magnet. When these magnets are lined up, the inside of the ferromagnet bears a strong analogy to the way empty space can be structured. Gauge vector fields that are sensitive to this structure of empty space can only propagate over a finite distance. Thus, they mediate short range interactions and acquire mass. Those fields that are not sensitive to the structure propagate unhindered. They remain massless and are responsible for the long range interactions. In this way, the mechanism accommodates within a single unified theory both short and long-range interactions.
Brout
and Englert, Higgs, and
Gerald Guralnik
,
C. R. Hagen
, and
Tom Kibble
introduced as agent of the vacuum structure a scalar field (most often called the
Higgs field
) which many physicists view as the agent responsible for the masses of fundamental particles. Brout and Englert also showed that the mechanism may remain valid if the scalar field is replaced by a more structured agent such as a fermion condensate. Their approach led them to conjecture that the theory is
renormalizable
.
[13]
The eventual proof of renormalizability, a major achievement of twentieth century physics, is due to
Gerardus 't Hooft
and
Martinus Veltman
who were awarded the 1999
Nobel Prize
for this work. The Brout?Englert?Higgs?Guralnik?Hagen?Kibble mechanism is the building stone of the
electroweak theory
of elementary particles and laid the foundation of a unified view of the basic laws of nature.
Major awards
[
edit
]
- 1978 First Prize in the International Gravity Contest (with R. Brout and E. Gunzig), awarded by the Gravity Research Foundation for the essay "The Causal Universe".
[14]
- 1982
Francqui Prize
, awarded by the
Francqui Foundation
once every four years in exact sciences "For his contribution to the theoretical understanding of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the physics of fundamental interactions, where, with Robert Brout, he was the first to show that spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theories gives mass to the gauge particles, for his extensive contributions in other domains, such as solid state physics, statistical mechanics, quantum field theory, general relativity and cosmology, for the originality and the fundamental importance of these achievements".
- 1997 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize (with R. Brout and P.W. Higgs), awarded by the
European Physical Society
"For formulating for the first time a self-consistent theory of charged massive vector bosons which became the foundation of the electroweak theory of elementary particles".
[15]
- 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics (with R. Brout and P.W. Higgs), awarded by the
Wolf Foundation
"For pioneering work that has led to the insight of mass generation, whenever a local gauge symmetry is realized asymmetrically in the world of sub-atomic particles".
- 2010
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics
(with
Guralnik
,
Hagen
,
Kibble
, Higgs, and
Brout
) awarded by The
American Physical Society
"For elucidation of the properties of spontaneous symmetry breaking in four-dimensional relativistic gauge theory and of the mechanism for the consistent generation of vector boson masses".
[16]
- By Royal Decree of 8 July 2013 Francois Englert was ennobled a baron by King
Albert II of Belgium
.
- 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider".
[5]
- 2013
Prince of Asturias Award
for Technical and Scientific Research (with Peter Higgs and CERN) "for the theoretical prediction and experimental detection of the Higgs boson".
[17]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Tel Aviv U. affiliated prof. who is a Holocaust survivor wins Nobel for physics
,
The Jerusalem Post
, Danielle Ziri, 10/08/2013
- ^
Tel Aviv University professor shares Nobel for physics
,
Haaretz
, 8 October 2013
- ^
"CV"
. Francquifoundation.be. 17 April 1982. Archived from
the original
on 22 December 2014
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
Publication list
Archived
8 July 2007 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
a
b
"The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013"
(PDF)
(Press release). Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 8 October 2013
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
"USC Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Francois Englert - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum"
.
collections.ushmm.org
.
- ^
Kibble, Tom W. B. (2009).
"Higgs?Brout?Englert?Guralnik?Hagen?Kibble Mechanism on Scholarpedia"
.
Scholarpedia
.
4
(1). Scholarpedia.org: 6441.
Bibcode
:
2009SchpJ...4.6441K
.
doi
:
10.4249/scholarpedia.6441
.
- ^
Englert, F.; Brout, R. (1964).
"Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons"
.
Phys. Rev. Lett
.
13
(9): 321?323.
Bibcode
:
1964PhRvL..13..321E
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.321
.
- ^
P. W. Higgs (1964). "Broken symmetries, massless particles and gauge fields".
Physics Letters
.
12
(2): 132?133.
Bibcode
:
1964PhL....12..132H
.
doi
:
10.1016/0031-9163(64)91136-9
.
.
- ^
P. W. Higgs (1964).
"Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons"
.
Phys. Rev. Lett
.
13
(16): 508?509.
Bibcode
:
1964PhRvL..13..508H
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.508
.
.
- ^
Guralnik, G.; Hagen, C.; Kibble, T. (1964).
"Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles"
.
Physical Review Letters
.
13
(20): 585.
Bibcode
:
1964PhRvL..13..585G
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.585
.
- ^
"Physical Review Letters - 50th Anniversary Milestone Papers"
. Prl.aps.org. Archived from
the original
on 10 January 2010
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
Fundamental Problems in Elementary Particle Physics
, Proceedings of the 14th Solvay Conference, University of Brussels, 2?7 October 1967 (John Wiley, New York, 1968) page 18.
- ^
"Gravity Research Foundation Awards"
. Gravityresearchfoundation.org. Archived from
the original
on 29 September 2007
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
"EPS High Energy Prize Laureates"
.
www.eps.org
. Archived from
the original
on 27 September 2007.
- ^
"American Physical Society - J. J. Sakurai Prize Winners"
. Aps.org
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
"Peter Higgs, Francois Englert and European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN: Prince of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research 2013"
.
Princess of Asturias Foundation
. 29 October 2013
. Retrieved
25 September
2018
.
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