Maria Novella Piancastelli is a retired Italian physicist whose research involves the experimental observation of electron configurations and shape resonance in atoms and molecules.
Piancastelli has a doctorate from Sapienza University of Rome. After professorships at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Uppsala University in Sweden, and the Sorbonne University in France, she retired as an emeritus professor at the Sorbonne. [1]
Piancastelli was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2014, after a nomination from the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, "for studies of electronic structure and dynamics of core-excited and core-ionized atoms and molecules by means of x-ray spectroscopic tools". [2] In 2022, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste named her as an Elettra Fellow. [3] She is also a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala. [1]
Atomic, molecular, and optical physics (AMO) is the study of matter–matter and light–matter interactions, at the scale of one or a few atoms and energy scales around several electron volts. The three areas are closely interrelated. AMO theory includes classical, semi-classical and quantum treatments. Typically, the theory and applications of emission, absorption, scattering of electromagnetic radiation (light) from excited atoms and molecules, analysis of spectroscopy, generation of lasers and masers, and the optical properties of matter in general, fall into these categories.
A shape resonance is a metastable state in which an electron is trapped due to the shape of a potential barrier. Altunata describes a state as being a shape resonance if, "the internal state of the system remains unchanged upon disintegration of the quasi-bound level." A more general discussion of resonances and their taxonomies in molecular system can be found in the review article by Schulz,; for the discovery of the Fano resonance line-shape and for the Majorana pioneering work in this field by Antonio Bianconi; and for a mathematical review by Combes et al.
Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste is an international research center located in Basovizza on the outskirts of Trieste, Italy.
Joannes Theodorus Maria (Jook) Walraven is a Dutch experimental physicist at the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute for experimental physics in Amsterdam. From 1967 he studied physics at the University of Amsterdam. Both his doctoral research and PhD research was with Isaac Silvera, on the subject of Bose-Einstein Condensation. Because of the difficulty of his research subject, his promotion took six years instead of four. The aim of his PhD research was to make a gas of atomic hydrogen, which could become the world's first quantum gas. This might then be a suitable candidate for a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC).
Margaret Mary Murnane NAS AAA&S is Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, having moved there in 1999, with past positions at the University of Michigan and Washington State University. She is currently Director of the STROBE NSF Science and Technology Center, and is among the foremost active researchers in laser science and technology. Her interests and research contributions span topics including atomic, molecular, and optical physics, nanoscience, laser technology, materials and chemical dynamics, plasma physics, and imaging science. Her work has earned her multiple awards including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship award in 2000, the Frederic Ives Medal/Quinn Prize in 2017, the highest award of The Optical Society, and the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics.
Giacinto Scoles is a European and North American chemist and physicist who is best known for his pioneering development of molecular beam methods for the study of weak van der Waals forces between atoms, molecules, and surfaces. He developed the cryogenic bolometer as a universal detector of atomic and molecule beams that not only can detect a small flux of molecules, but also responds to the internal energy of the molecules. This is the basis for the optothermal spectroscopy technique which Scoles and others have used to obtain very high signal-to noise and high resolution ro-vibrational spectra.
Ana Maria Rey is a Colombian theoretical physicist, professor at University of Colorado at Boulder, a JILA fellow, a fellow at National Institute of Standards and Technology and a fellow of the American Physical Society. Rey was the first Hispanic woman to win the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in 2019. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Maciej Lewenstein, is a Polish theoretical physicist, currently an ICREA professor at ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Castelldefels near Barcelona. He is an author of over 480 scientific articles and 2 books, and recipient of many international and national prizes. In addition to quantum physics his other passion is music, and jazz in particular. His collection of compact discs and vinyl records includes over 9000 items.
Jun Ye is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular and optical physics.
William George Harter is an American physicist at the University of Arkansas.
Stephen Turnham Pratt is a senior chemist and Argonne Distinguished Fellow. He is the theme lead for CSE’s Fundamental Interactions Theme and the group leader for the Gas-Phase Chemical Dynamics group. From September 2022 until July 2023, he served as the Interim Division Director for Chemical Sciences and Engineering (CSE) Division.
Uwe Paul Erich Thumm is a German-American physicist with research interests in atomic, molecular, and optical physics and nanoscience. A distinguished physics professor at Kansas State University and the J. R. Macdonald Laboratory in Manhattan, Kansas his research team investigates the ultrafast dynamics of electrons and molecular fragments in laser-matter and particle-matter interactions, highly-charged-ion physics, electron–atom collisions, and plasmonic nanostructures. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of several awards, including the Senior Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Kate Page Kirby is an American physicist. From February 2015 to December 2020, Kirby was the chief executive officer of the American Physical Society (APS) and sits on the board of directors of the American Institute of Physics. Kate Kirby was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1989 for her "innovative application of methods of quantum chemistry to the quantitative elucidation of a diverse range of molecular phenomena." She was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1996 for her contributions to physics.
Chris H. Greene is an American physicist and the Albert Overhauser Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019.
Susanne F. Yelin is a German physicist specializing in theoretical quantum optics and known for her work in quantum coherence and superradiance. She is a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, a professor of physics in residence at Harvard University, and vice director of the Max Planck/Harvard Research Center for Quantum Optics.
Majed Chergui is a Swiss and French physicist specialized in ultrafast dynamics of light-induced processes. He is a professor at EPFL, head of the Laboratory of Ultrafast Spectroscopy at EPFL's School of Basic Sciences, and founding director of the Lausanne Centre for Ultrafast Science (LACUS).
Francesca Ferlaino is an Italian-Austrian experimental physicist known for her research on quantum matter. She is a professor of physics at the University of Innsbruck.
Svetlana Alexandrovna Kotochigova is a Soviet and American physicist whose research involves the theory and simulation of ultracold atoms and ultracold molecules. She is a research professor of physics at Temple University and a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
Wendell Talbot Hill III is an American physicist and professor at the University of Maryland. His research career has largely focused on the intersection of laser physics and quantum science.
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