Gian Francesco Giudice (born January 25, 1961) is an Italian

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

working at

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 ...

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

Academic career

After graduating in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from the

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...

in 1984, Giudice obtained in 1988 his PhD in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

from the

International School for Advanced Studies The International School for Advanced Studies (Italian: ''Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati''; SISSA) is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy. SISSA is active in the ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

. Between 1988 and 1990 he was Research Associate at the

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

near

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Between 1990 and 1992 he was Research Fellow in the Physics Department of the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, in the group led by

Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interactio ...

. After being employed by the

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on 8 August 1951, to furt ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, in 1993 he moved to

, where he is currently the Head of the

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

Department. Academician of th
Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
and of

Accademia Galileiana The Accademia Galileiana, or "Galilean academy", is a learned society in the city of Padua in Italy. The full name of the society is , "Galilean academy of science, letters and the arts in Padova". It was founded as the in Padua in 1599, on the ...

, he has been awarded the 201
Jacques Solvay Chair
in Physics.

Research

The research activity of Giudice mainly deals with the formulation of new theories that extend our present knowledge of the particle world toward even smaller distances. He is also studying how these theories can be applied to

in order to describe the early stages of the history of our

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

. His most notable results are in the areas of

supersymmetry In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories e ...

extra dimensions In physics, extra dimensions are proposed additional space or time dimensions beyond the (3 + 1) typical of observed spacetime, such as the first attempts based on the Kaluza–Klein theory. Among theories proposing extra dimensions are: ...

, electroweak physics,

collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators. Colliders are used as a research tool in particle ...

physics,

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...

, and

leptogenesis __notoc__ In physical cosmology, leptogenesis is the generic term for hypothetical physical processes that produced an asymmetry between leptons and antileptons in the very early universe, resulting in the present-day dominance of leptons over ...

. Together with physicist

Riccardo Barbieri Riccardo Barbieri (born 1944) is an Italian theoretical physicist and a professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He has written more than two hundred research papers in the field of theoretical elementary particle physics, and has been p ...

, he proposed a widely used criterion to test the degree of naturalness of a

supersymmetric theory In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories ...

that achieves

electroweak symmetry breaking In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other bein ...

. He co-invented the Giudice-Masiero mechanism, which is the leading explanation for the

Mu problem In theoretical physics, the problem is a problem of supersymmetry, supersymmetric theories, concerned with understanding the parameters of the theory. Background The supersymmetric Peter Higgs, Higgs mass parameter appears as the following term ...

supergravity In theoretical physics, supergravity (supergravity theory; SUGRA for short) is a modern field theory that combines the principles of supersymmetry and general relativity; this is in contrast to non-gravitational supersymmetric theories such as ...

. He has made fundamental contributions to the construction of Gauge Mediation, and he is a co-author of the first papers proposing Anomaly Mediation and

Split Supersymmetry In particle physics, split supersymmetry is a proposal for physics beyond the Standard Model. History It was proposed separately in three papers. The first by James Wells in June 2003 in a more modest form that mildly relaxed the assumption abo ...

. He is one of the proponents of a method to compute

quantum effects Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

in theories with broken

through

analytic continuation In complex analysis, a branch of mathematics, analytic continuation is a technique to extend the domain of definition of a given analytic function. Analytic continuation often succeeds in defining further values of a function, for example in a new ...

into

superspace Superspace is the coordinate space of a theory exhibiting supersymmetry. In such a formulation, along with ordinary space dimensions ''x'', ''y'', ''z'', ..., there are also "anticommuting" dimensions whose coordinates are labeled in Grassmann numb ...

. Well known and much used in

LHC The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundre ...

studies is his method to describe

graviton In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical quantum of gravity, an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathem ...

interactions in theories with extra spatial dimensions. He is also one of the originators of the idea of Minimal Flavor Violation, a paradigm to characterize the effects of

flavor Flavor or flavour is either the sensory perception of taste or smell, or a flavoring in food that produces such perception. Flavor or flavour may also refer to: Science *Flavors (programming language), an early object-oriented extension to Lis ...

transitions in new theories of

. After the discovery of the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...

, he computed the probability that the Higgs vacuum undergoes

quantum tunnelling Quantum tunnelling, also known as tunneling ( US) is a quantum mechanical phenomenon whereby a wavefunction can propagate through a potential barrier. The transmission through the barrier can be finite and depends exponentially on the barrier h ...

, finding the surprising result that the

is in a critical state which will eventually end in a cosmic collapse.

Support of particle accelerator projects

Giudice has played an active role in studying the physics potential of

particle accelerators A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

, supporting and advocating several new projects at

and in other laboratories worldwide. He has coordinated study groups for LEP,

Tevatron The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermilab, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (also known as ''Fermilab''), east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle ...

, the

Neutrino Factory The Neutrino Factory is a proposed particle accelerator complex intended to measure in detail the properties of neutrinos, which are extremely weakly interacting fundamental particles that can travel in straight lines through normal matter for thous ...

CLIC CLIC or Clic can refer to: Science and Technology * Chloride intracellular channel (a type of chloride channel, e.g. CLIC1) * Clathrin-independent carrier (a subtype of endocytic membrane) * Compact Linear Collider, a proposed particle accelerat ...

SuperB Superb may refer to: *Škoda Superb car *, nine Royal Navy ships *The Superb The ''Superb'' was used as U.S. President Warren G. Harding's personal Pullman railroad car in a cross-country tour in 1923. After Harding's death, the car returned hi ...

and has participated in the committee reviewing the safety of collisions at the

. He is a member of the LHC Experiments Committee
LHCC
), the body that reviews the activity of the experimental groups at the

, and of the European Committee for Future Accelerators
ECFA
, the advisory body for long-range planning of high-energy facilities in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Science popularization

Besides his research work, Giudice is active in popularization of science and outreach, often giving public lectures on

and related topics, and participating in science festivals and other events. He is the author of
A Zeptospace Odyssey
', a popular-science book on the physics of the

, which has been finalist for th
2012 Galileo Literary Prize
for popular science and the Prize Pianeta Galileo 2013. The book, originally written in English, has been translated into Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Korean.G. F. Giudice,

', Humanist, Seoul 2017, .

References

External links

Scientific publications of G. F. Giudice
on

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 ...

''A Zeptospace Odyssey'' website

Interview at Origins 2013

2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate

2014 Pauli Lecture on the Higgs Boson
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Giudice, Gian Francesco 1961 births People associated with CERN 20th-century Italian physicists Living people Particle physicists Scientists from Padua Theoretical physicists University of Padua alumni People associated with Fermilab 21st-century Italian physicists