Savas Dimopoulos (; el, Σάββας Δημόπουλος; born 1952) is a
particle physicist
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standa ...
at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. He worked 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 ...
from 1994 to 1997. Dimopoulos is well known for his work on constructing theories
beyond the Standard Model.
Life
He was born an ethnic
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
in
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and later moved to
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
due to ethnic tensions in Turkey during the 1950s and 1960s.
Education and career
Dimopoulos studied as an undergraduate at the
University of Houston
The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
. He went to the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
and studied under
Yoichiro Nambu
was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism ...
for his doctoral studies. After completing his Ph.D. in 1979, he briefly went to
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
before taking a faculty position at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1980. During 1981 and 1982 he was also affiliated with the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
. From 1994 to 1997 he was on leave from Stanford University and was employed by
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 ...
.
Dimopoulos is well known for his work on constructing theories
beyond the Standard Model, which are currently being searched for and tested at
particle 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 ...
s like
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 ...
at CERN and at experiments all over the world. For example, in 1981 he proposed a
softly broken SU(5) GUT model with
Howard Georgi
Howard Mason Georgi III (born January 6, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. He is also Director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics. He was Co-M ...
, which is one of the foundational papers of the
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is an extension to the Standard Model that realizes supersymmetry. MSSM is the minimal supersymmetrical model as it considers only "the inimumnumber of new particle states and new interactions con ...
(MSSM). He also proposed the
ADD model
In particle physics and string theory (M-theory), the ADD model, also known as the model with large extra dimensions (LED), is a model framework that attempts to solve the hierarchy problem. (''Why is the force of gravity so weak compared to the el ...
of
large extra dimension
In particle physics and string theory (M-theory), the ADD model, also known as the model with large extra dimensions (LED), is a model framework that attempts to solve the hierarchy problem. (''Why is the force of gravity so weak compared to the el ...
s with
Nima Arkani-Hamed
Nima Arkani-Hamed ( fa, نیما ارکانی حامد; born April 5, 1972) is an American-Canadian and
Gia Dvali
Georgi (Gia) Dvali ( Georgian: გიორგი (გია) დვალი; born May 30, 1964) is a Georgian theoretical physicist and science communicator in Georgia. He is a professor of theoretical physics at the Ludwig Maximilian Universi ...
.
Awards
In 2006, 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 ...
awarded Dimopoulos the
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 ...
, "For his creative ideas on dynamical symmetry breaking,
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 ...
, and extra spatial dimensions, which have shaped theoretical research on TeV-scale physics, thereby inspiring a wide range of experiments." In 2006, he received the
Caterina Tomassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize at the University of Rome, Italy. "The prize recognizes and encourages outstanding achievements in physics. Dimopoulos was lauded by the Tomassoni Committee as "one of the leading figures in theoretical particle physics. His proposal of the supersymmetric standard model has aided the understanding of high-energy physics mechanisms."
He appeared in the 2013 documentary film ''
Particle Fever
''Particle Fever'' is a 2013 American documentary film tracking the first round of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. The film follows the experimental physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Rese ...
'', about the work of the
Large Hadron Collider
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 hundred ...
.
He is a member of the U. S.
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
.
Work
*
Baryogenesis
In physical cosmology, baryogenesis (also known as baryosynthesis) is the physical process that is hypothesized to have taken place during the early universe to produce baryonic asymmetry, i.e. the imbalance of matter (baryons) and antimatter (an ...
at the GUT scale
* Early work on
technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
* Early work on soft supersymmetry breaking and
Gauge coupling unification
A Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is a model in particle physics in which, at high energies, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model comprising the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces are merged into a single force. Although this ...
in the MSSM
* Moduli-mediated millimeter scale forces
* "ADD model" of
large extra dimension
In particle physics and string theory (M-theory), the ADD model, also known as the model with large extra dimensions (LED), is a model framework that attempts to solve the hierarchy problem. (''Why is the force of gravity so weak compared to the el ...
s, with Nima Arkani-Hamed and Gia Dvali
*
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 ...
References
External links
Papersin 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 ...
database.
Faculty pageat Stanford.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dimopoulos, Savas
1952 births
People associated with CERN
Greek academics
Greek emigrants to the United States
20th-century Greek physicists
Constantinopolitan Greeks
Harvard University staff
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients
Living people
Particle physicists
Scientists from Istanbul
Stanford University Department of Physics faculty
Turkish people of Greek descent
University of Chicago alumni
University of Houston alumni
University of Michigan alumni
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Scientists from Athens
Academics from Istanbul