Andreas Emil Petermann (27 September 1922,

Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

– 21 August 2011, Lausanne), known as André Petermann, was a Swiss theoretical physicist known for introducing the

renormalization group In theoretical physics, the term renormalization group (RG) refers to a formal apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different scales. In particle physics, it reflects the changes in the ...

, suggesting a quark-like model, and work related to the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the

muon A muon ( ; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 '' e'' and a spin of , but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As wi ...

. Petermann obtained his doctorate from the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...

in May 1952 under the supervision of professor Ernst Stueckelberg. The work was funded by the Swiss Atomic Energy Commission. Following Lausanne, Petermann moved on to the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, UK, before he became a

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

staff member in 1955. The CERN Theory Division was at that time still hosted at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

. It was then moved to Geneva together with the CERN experimental groups in 1957.

Work

Jointly with his advisor, Ernst Stueckelberg, in 1953, they introduced, and named the "

", which describes the running of physical couplings with energy. He also, apparently independently, considered the idea of

quarks A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...

, albeit in a highly abstract, speculative form. Petermann submitted a four-page paper entitled "''Propriétés de l'étrangeté et une formule de masse pour les mésons vectoriels''" to the journal ''

Nuclear Physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

'', which received the paper on 30 December 1963, but did not publish the article before March 1965. In this paper Petermann discusses what has become known as

quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...

s as named by Murray Gell-Mann, whose ''

Physics Letters ''Physics Letters'' was a scientific journal published from 1962 to 1966, when it split in two series now published by Elsevier: *''Physics Letters A'': condensed matter physics, theoretical physics, nonlinear science, statistical physics, mathema ...

'' publication was submitted during the first days of January 1964, and "

aces ACeS (PT Asia Cellular Satellite) was a regional satellite telecommunications company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. It offered GSM-like satellite telephony services to Asian market. The coverage area included Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Phili ...

" as named by George Zweig, who wrote two CERN-TH preprints slightly later in 1964. Petermann is also remembered for his pioneering calculation of the next-to-leading order correction to the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the

. Petermann was not consistent when signing his scientific papers; in the beginning of his career he used ''Petermann'', then ''Peterman'' and later he alternated between the two forms. A list of his works can be found in the

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

Literature Databas

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Petermann, Andre 1922 births 2011 deaths Swiss physicists People associated with CERN