Luciano Maiani (born 16 July 1941, in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
) is a
Sammarinese physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
best known for his prediction of the
charm quark
The charm quark, charmed quark or c quark (from its symbol, c) is the third-most massive of all quarks, a type of elementary particle. Charm quarks are found in hadrons, which are subatomic particles made of quarks. Examples of hadrons containin ...
with
Sheldon Glashow
Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...
and
John Iliopoulos (the "
GIM mechanism").
Academic history
In 1964 Luciano Maiani received his degree in physics and he became a research associate at the
Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Italy.
During that same year he collaborated with
Raoul Gatto's 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 ...
group at the
University of Florence.
He crossed the Atlantic in 1969 to do a post-doctoral fellowship at
Harvard's Lyman Laboratory of Physics.
In 1976 Maiani became a professor of theoretical physics at the
University of Rome,
however he traveled widely during this period, holding visiting professorships at the
Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris (1977)
and
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 Gen ...
(1979–1980 and 1985–1986).
Maiani also took an interest in the direction of particle physics research start on CERN's Scientific Policy Committee from 1984 to 1991.
Then, in 1993, he became president of Italy's
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 ...
(INFN).
From 1993 to 1996 Maiani served as a scientific delegate in CERN council and then as that
council's president in 1997.
Thereafter he became director general of CERN, serving from 1 January 1999 through the end of 2003. From 1995 to 1997 Maiani chaired the Italian Comitato Tecnico Scientifico, Fondo Ricerca Applicata. At the end of 2007 he was proposed as president of
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Ro ...
, but his nomination was suspended temporally after he signed a letter criticizing the rector of 'La Sapienza' University in Rome, who invited
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereig ...
to give a ''lectio magistralis'' in 2008. However he became the President of CNR since 2008.
Luciano Maiani ha
authored over 100 scientific publicationson the theory of elementary particles often with several co-authors. In 1970 he predicted the charmed quark in a paper with Glashow and Iliopoulos which was later discovered at
SLAC and
Brookhaven in 1974 and led to a
Nobel Prize in Physics
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
for the discoverers. Working with
Guido Altarelli
Guido Altarelli (12 July 1941 – 30 September 2015) was an Italian theoretical physicist.
Biography
Altarelli graduated in Physics from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1963 with Raoul Gatto whom he followed to the University of Florence (19 ...
in 1974 they explained that the observed octet enhancement in weak non-leptonic decays was due to a leading gluon exchange effect in
quantum chromodynamics
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type ...
. They later extended this effect to describe the
weak non-leptonic decays
Weak may refer to:
Songs
* "Weak" (AJR song), 2016
* "Weak" (Melanie C song), 2011
* "Weak" (SWV song), 1993
* "Weak" (Skunk Anansie song), 1995
* "Weak", a song by Seether from '' Seether: 2002-2013''
Television episodes
* "Weak" (''Fear t ...
of charm and
bottom quarks as well and also produced a parton model description of heavy flavor weak decays. In 1976 Maiani analyzed the CP violation in the six-quark theory and predicted the very small electric dipole moment of the neutron. In the 1980s he started using the numerical simulation of lattice QCD and this led to the first prediction of the decay constant of pseudoscalar charmed mesons and of
B mesons. A proponent 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 ...
, Maiani once said that the search for it was "primary goal of modern particle physics".
He has not confined his interest to the theoretical side of physics either, with involvement in
ALPI,
EUROBALL,
DAFNE,
VIRGO
Virgo may refer to:
*Virgo (astrology), the sixth astrological sign of the zodiac
* Virgo (constellation), a constellation
*Virgo Cluster, a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo
*Virgo Stellar Stream, remains of a dwarf galaxy
* Virgo Su ...
and the
LHC.
As of September 2020, he is a member of the Italian
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...
.
executive Committee
aspeninstitute.it/
Awards
*1979 Matteucci Medal The Matteucci Medal is an Italian award for physicists, named after Carlo Matteucci from Forlì. It was established to award physicists for their fundamental contributions. Under an Italian Royal Decree dated July 10, 1870, the Italian Society ...
, Accademia Nazionale dei XL
*1987 Sakurai Prize
The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, is presented by the American Physical Society at its annual April Meeting, and honors outstanding achievement in particle physics theory. The prize consists of a monetary award ($10,000 U ...
of the American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
*1996 Doctor honoris causa, Université de la Méditerranée, Aix-Marseille
*2007 Dirac Medal, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Educatio ...
, Trieste, Italy
*2010 Doctor honoris causa, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
The Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) (Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla) is the oldest and largest university in Puebla, Mexico. Founded on 15 April 1578 as Colegio del Espíritu Santo, the school was sponsored by the ...
, Puebla, México
*2013 Bruno Pontecorvo Prize by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, russian: Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (110 km north of Moscow), Russia, is an international research c ...
, Dubna
Dubna ( rus, Дубна́, p=dʊbˈna) is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of ''naukograd'' (i.e. town of science), being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research center and one o ...
, Russia
See also
* GIM mechanism
External links
Scientific publications of Luciano Maiani
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 19 ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maiani, Luciano
1941 births
People associated with CERN
Living people
Sammarinese physicists
Particle physicists
Experimental physicists
Experimental particle physics
Sapienza University of Rome faculty
Foreign Fellows of Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Theoretical physicists
Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients
Recipients of the Matteucci Medal
National Research Council (Italy) people
Fellows of the American Physical Society