Michel Spiro | |
|---|---|
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| Born | February 24, 1946 |
| Nationality | French |
| Alma mater | École polytechnique |
| Awards | Prix Thibaud (1985) Prix Félix-Robin (1999) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | CEA IN2P3 CERN |
Michel Spiro (born 24 February 1946 in Roanne, Loire, France) is a French physicist.
Michel Spiro attended the high school Jean-Puy de Roanne. Spiro obtained the baccalauréat in 1963, with a specialisation in elementary mathematics. After this, he attended the school Lycée Louis-le-Grand to prepare his entry exam at the École polytechnique. He completed his graduate studies in theoretical physics in 1969.
He joined the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 1970, as an engineer. He was promoted to the position of director of the Particle Physics Section of the Department of Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Associated Instrumentation (DAPNIA ) in 1991 and led the section until 1999. He became chargé de mission of the CEA and assistant scientific director in Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), responsible for astroparticle physics and neutrinos. He took over the leadership of DAPNIA in 2002. From 2003 to 2010 he was appointed director of Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules (IN2P3) in CNRS. [1]
Spiro obtained his PhD [2] from University of Paris-Sud, Orsay in 1976. His early research in particle physics led him, as a member of the UA1 experiment, to participate in the discovery of the intermediate bosons W and Z. [3] He then turned to study particles from the cosmos by participating in the GALLEX solar neutrino detection experiment. [4] He became then the spokesperson of the microlensing search experiment EROS(Experience de Recherche d'Objets Sombres). [5] [6] [7]
From 1983 to 1999, Professor Spiro lectured quantum mechanics, then stellar equilibrium and evolution and finally energy and environment at the École Polytechnique. [5]
From 2010 to 2013 he was President of CERN Council. His presidency overlapped with the start of LHC physics. [8] Since then Spiro helds the position as research director emeritus at the CEA.
Michel Spiro was president of the French Physical Society from 2016 to 2017 [9] and president-elect for International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) as of 2018. [10] In October 2019 Spiro was asked to replace IUPAP president Kennedy J. Reed who wanted to step down for personal reasons. [11] [12] [13]
In June 2020, Michel Spiro was appointed chair of the CERN and Society Foundation Board, [14] a foundation to support and promote the mission of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and disseminate its benefits to the wider public.
Spiro chairs the steering committee of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD2022). The International Year was proclaimed by the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly 2 December 2021. [15] IYBSSD was officially inaugurated in July 2022 [16] and extend until December 2023. He also contributed towards the proclamation on August 25 2023, by the United Nations General Assembly, of an International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 2024 -2033. [17]
Officer of the Legion of Honour (2021), [18] [19] Knight (2004) [20] 
Officer of the National Order of Merit (France) (2008) [21] The database INSPIRE-HEP has recorded more than 200 scientific articles signed by Spiro.
A gluon is a type of massless elementary particle that mediates the strong interaction between quarks, acting as the exchange particle for the interaction. Gluons are massless vector bosons, thereby having a spin of 1. Through the strong interaction, gluons bind quarks into groups according to quantum chromodynamics (QCD), forming hadrons such as protons and neutrons.
A tachyon or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light. Physicists believe that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are inconsistent with the known laws of physics. If such particles did exist they could be used to send signals faster than light. According to the theory of relativity this would violate causality, leading to logical paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox. Tachyons would exhibit the unusual property of increasing in speed as their energy decreases, and would require infinite energy to slow to the speed of light. No verifiable experimental evidence for the existence of such particles has been found.
The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces in the universe and classifying all known elementary particles. It was developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the work of many scientists worldwide, with the current formulation being finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, proof of the top quark (1995), the tau neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great accuracy.
Jack Steinberger was a German-born American physicist noted for his work with neutrinos, the subatomic particles considered to be elementary constituents of matter. He was a recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Leon M. Lederman and Melvin Schwartz, for the discovery of the muon neutrino. Through his career as an experimental particle physicist, he held positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University (1950–68), and the CERN (1968–86). He was also a recipient of the United States National Medal of Science in 1988, and the Matteucci Medal from the Italian Academy of Sciences in 1990.
In particle physics, a generation or family is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ by their flavour quantum number and mass, but their electric and strong interactions are identical.
This is a timeline of subatomic particle discoveries, including all particles thus far discovered which appear to be elementary given the best available evidence. It also includes the discovery of composite particles and antiparticles that were of particular historical importance.
Sterile neutrinos are hypothetical particles that interact only via gravity and not via any of the other fundamental interactions of the Standard Model. The term sterile neutrino is used to distinguish them from the known, ordinary active neutrinos in the Standard Model, which carry an isospin charge of ±+1/ 2 and engage in the weak interaction. The term typically refers to neutrinos with right-handed chirality, which may be inserted into the Standard Model. Particles that possess the quantum numbers of sterile neutrinos and masses great enough such that they do not interfere with the current theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis are often called neutral heavy leptons (NHLs) or heavy neutral leptons (HNLs).
The PS210 experiment was the first experiment that led to the observation of antihydrogen atoms produced at the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) at CERN in 1995. The antihydrogen atoms were produced in flight and moved at nearly the speed of light. They made unique electrical signals in detectors that destroyed them almost immediately after they formed by matter–antimatter annihilation.
CDHS was a neutrino experiment at CERN taking data from 1976 until 1984. The experiment was officially referred to as WA1. CDHS was a collaboration of groups from CERN, Dortmund, Heidelberg, Saclay and later Warsaw. The collaboration was led by Jack Steinberger. The experiment was designed to study deep inelastic neutrino interactions in iron.
John (Jean) Iliopoulos is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and Luciano Maiani. Iliopoulos is also known for demonstrating the cancellation of anomalies in the Standard model. He is further known for the Fayet-Iliopoulos D-term formula, which was introduced in 1974. He is currently an honorary member of Laboratory of theoretical physics of École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
Francisco José Ynduráin Muñoz was a Spanish theoretical physicist. He founded the particle physics research group that became the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he was a Professor. He was described by his colleagues as "a scientist that always searched for excellence in research".
Stephan Narison is a Malagasy theoretical high-energy physicist specialized in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the gauge theory of strong interactions. He is the founder of the Series of International Conferences in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD-Montpellier) and of the Series of International Conferences in High-Energy Physics (HEPMAD-Madagascar).
Magda Galula Ericson (born 1929) is a French-Algerian physicist of Tunisian origin. Her experimental pioneering PhD work changed the understanding of critical phenomena near the Curie point and later in her career she has become known for her theoretical development of the Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz correction.
Daniele Amati is an Italian theoretical physicist, specializing in particle physics.
Ettore Fiorini was an Italian experimental particle physicist. He studied the physics of the weak interaction and was a pioneer in the field of double beta decay. He served as a professor of nuclear and subnuclear physics at the University of Milano-Bicocca.
Claude Georges Itzykson, was a French theoretical physicist who worked in quantum field theory and statistical mechanics.
Maurice René Michel Jacob was a French theoretical particle physicist.
Graciela Beatriz Gelmini is a theoretical physicist who specializes in astroparticle physics. She is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004.
Felix Hans Boehm was a Swiss-American experimental physicist, known for his research on weak interactions, parity violation, and neutrino physics.
Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille,, is a French cosmologist. During her career as a researcher in particle physics, she has taken part in several large-scale experiments. Her work has been recognized several times including the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize, the appointment as Knight of the Legion of Honor and her election to the French Academy of Sciences.
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