Pascal Elleaume (1956–2011) was a French physicist and a pioneer in the field of

synchrotron radiation Synchrotron radiation (also known as magnetobremsstrahlung radiation) is the electromagnetic radiation emitted when relativistic charged particles are subject to an acceleration perpendicular to their velocity (). It is produced artificially in ...

and

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed p ...

light sources, where his work on radiations from

insertion device An insertion device (ID) is a component in modern synchrotron light sources, so called because they are "inserted" into accelerator tracks. They are periodic magnetic structures that stimulate highly brilliant, forward-directed synchrotron radiat ...

was pivotal. Pascal died in 2011.

Education and career

Elleaume studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where he completed his PhD on turbulence in

Helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...

and obtained his ''

agrégation In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''professe ...

'' in 1978. After completing his PhD, he became a visiting scholar at

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

for a year, then joined the

French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or CEA ( French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and securit ...

(CEA), where he started working on

Free-electron laser A free-electron laser (FEL) is a (fourth generation) light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions and behaves in many ways like a laser, but instead of using stimulated emission from atomic or molecula ...

s with

Yves Petroff Yves Petroff is a French scientist and the former director of the Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron in Campinas, Brazil, where he oversaw the completion of Sirius, among the first synchrotron light sources to feature a diffraction-limited sto ...

. He joined the

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) is a joint research facility situated in Grenoble, France, supported by 22 countries (13 member countries: France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, ...

(ESRF) in 1986,Pascal Elleaume obituary, ESRF
/ref> where he became the director of the accelerator division.

Life and family

Pascal married in October 1992 and had three children. Pascal died in the French Alps in 2011 in an avalanche.

References

Free-electron lasers Turbulence Helium Governmental nuclear organizations École Normale Supérieure alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Particle accelerators Tunisian physicists Particle physicists 1956 births 2011 deaths {{France-physicist-stub