Juan José Giambiagi
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Juan José Giambiagi (18 June 1924 – 8 January 1996) was an Argentine theoretical physicist. He was professor of the
University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...
but after a series of
coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
s in Argentina, he moved to Brazil. He is known for the discovery of
dimensional regularization __NOTOC__ In theoretical physics, dimensional regularization is a method introduced by Juan José Giambiagi and as well as – independently and more comprehensively – by Gerard 't Hooft and Martinus J. G. Veltman for regularizing integral ...
in
quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
.


Life

Juan José Giambiagi was born in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
in 1924. studied at the
University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...
(UBA) graduating in 1948, and obtaining a doctorate in physics in 1950. His thesis was titled "Application of the Hadamard method to some problems in mathematical physics" () and his PhD advisor was
Alberto González Domínguez Alberto González Domínguez (11 April 1904 in Buenos Aires – 14 September 1982 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine mathematician working on analysis, probability theory and quantum field theory. González Domínguez received his Ph.D. from the ...
. He became faculty of UBA from 1957 to 1956. Under his direction, physicist Miguel Ángel Virasoro was recruited. In 1960, Giambiagi,
José Leite Lopes José Leite Lopes (October 28, 1918 – June 12, 2006) was a Brazilian theoretical physicist who worked in the field of quantum field theory and particle physics. Life Leite Lopes began his university studies in 1935, enrolling in industrial che ...
from Brazil and Marcos Moshinsky from Mexico, founded the Centro Latino-Americano de Física (CLAF). After the
Argentine Revolution The Argentine Revolution (Spanish: ''Revolución Argentina'') is the name given to the civil-military dictatorship that overthrew the constitutional president Arturo Illia through a coup d'état on June 28, 1966, and governed the country u ...
of 1966, General
Juan Carlos Onganía Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo (; 17 March 1914 – 8 June 1995) was President of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as dictator after toppling the president Arturo Illia in a coup d'état self-named " Argentine Revol ...
dissolved university autonomy and chased academics opposed to his regime. Due to these events, 69 of the 75 professors and researchers of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of UBA had resigned, including Giambiagi. Along with his collaborator and two other professors, Giambiagi a wrote a letter in the Argentine newspaper ''
La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...
'' to condemn the attack on universities. Giambiagi and Bollini continued to work outside of UBA. From 1968 to 1976 they worked in the math department of the
National University of La Plata The National University of La Plata (, UNLP) is a national public research university located in the city of La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It has over 90,000 regular students, 10,000 teaching staff, 17 departments and 10 ...
, which at the time was smaller and underfunded. Despite the issues, this period was considered their most productive period. In 1973, Giambiagi was arrested for alleged participation on Jewish or communist conspiracies. However he was released for his collaborations with the United States government during his time at UBA. After the
1976 Argentine coup d'état Events January * January 2 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 18 – Full diplomatic ...
, the University of La Plata was targeted by the new authorities. That year, Giambiagi was detained again and interrogated. After being released, Giambiagi escaped with his family to Brazil. Giambiagi started working in
Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas The Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (, CBPF) is a physics research center in the Urca, Rio de Janeiro, Urca neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro sponsored by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), l ...
, as head of the particle-physics department from 1978 to 1985. In 1986, Giambiagi became the director of CLAF. Giamgiagi was an early supporter of the creation of the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is a research center for physical and mathematical sciences, located in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The center operates under a tripartite agreement between the Gov ...
(ICTP) and was in ICTP Scientific Council from 1987 to 1995. Giambiagi died in 1996 in
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...
.


Work on dimensional regularization

In 1971, Giambiagi and Carlos Guido Bollini, published the first work on
dimensional regularization __NOTOC__ In theoretical physics, dimensional regularization is a method introduced by Juan José Giambiagi and as well as – independently and more comprehensively – by Gerard 't Hooft and Martinus J. G. Veltman for regularizing integral ...
. Their method allows to treat divergent integrals. It consist in calculating the integrals in ''d'' = 4 + ''ε'' dimensions and later take the limit ''ε'' → 0 only at the very end. Their work was inspired by Giambiagi's doctoral advisor Alberto González Domínguez on analytical regularization. Giambiagi and Bollini tried to publish in ''Physics Letters B'' in 1971 but their work was rejected by the referees. Their work was later accepted, in August 1972, and in ''Il'' ''Nuovo Cimento'' in November 1972. Meanwhile,
Gerard 't Hooft Gerardus "Gerard" 't Hooft (; born July 5, 1946) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Martinus J. G. Veltman "for elucidating t ...
and Martinus J. G. Veltman independently discovered dimensional regularization but got their paper published in July 1972 before Giambiagi and Bollini. Veltman admitted to have seen drafts of Giambiagi and Bollini's work. Both t' Hooft and Veltman were awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...
in 1999 for "elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics.”, but the work of Giambiagi and Bollini was not cited in the document references. However, Veltman mentioned the “the independent work of Bollini and Giambiagi,” in his Nobel lecture.


Honors and awards

After the death of Giambiagi, the physics department at UBA was renamed the Juan José Giambiagi Department of Physics. At ICTP, the Giambiagi lecture hall was created.


References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Giambiagi, Juan Jose Recipients of the National Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil) 1924 births 1996 deaths