2018 NPD prizes awarded at EuNPC
The Nuclear Physics Division of the European Physical Society awarded its 2018 prizes during the recent European Nuclear Physics Conference, which took place in Bologna (Italy), September 2-7 2018.
The prestigious Lise Meitner Prize, which rewards, every two years, scientists for their outstanding work in the fields of experimental, theoretical or applied nuclear science, was awarded, during the opening plenary session of the conference on September 3, to Prof. Peter Ring and Prof. Peter Schuck. They earned the prize thanks to “their enormous impact on both theoretical and experimental many-body nuclear physics.” Their impact is proven by the success of the book they co-authored, “The nuclear many-body system”, which helped train generations of European nuclear physicists, and is widely recognised as a standard reference in the community.
Aside from their common work, each of them independently provided crucial contributions to nuclear physics theory in the last 40 years. Peter Ring, who is currently Professor Emeritus at the Technische Universität München (Germany), achieved, among other accomplishments, a microscopic description of high-spin phenomena and collective vibrations in nuclei, and developed the theory of relativistic nuclear energy density functionals. Peter Schuck, Research Director Emeritus at the Institut de Physique Nucléaire d’Orsay and at the Laboratoire de Physique et Modélisation des Milieux Condensés of Grenoble (France), introduced new approaches for nuclear matter in connection with nuclear superfluidity. His studies on alpha-particle condensation motivated a wealth of experimental studies on the structure of alpha clusters.
The 2018 Lise Meitner Prize, which consists of a medal, a diploma, and a cash award, was sponsored by the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, the KVI Centre for Advanced Radiation Technology, Groningen, the Forschungszentrum GmbH, Jülich, the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, INFN, Catania, the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, INFN, Legnaro, and by the Institut de Physique Nucléaire, Orsay.
The PhD prizes, which are assigned every three years and aim to recognise the excellence of recent PhD theses in experimental, theoretical or applied nuclear physics, were awarded, during the closing plenary session of the conference on September 7, 2018. The three ex-aequo winners, Dr. Ronald Fernando Garzia Ruiz, Dr. Carlo Giulio Bruno, and Dr. José Luis Rodríguez Sánchez, received a cash award to cover their conference costs, and had the chance to present, in invited plenary talks, their PhD work to the EuNPC audience. Dr. Garcia Ruiz, who graduated in 2015 at KU Leuven, Belgium, presented his studies on the “Possible magicity of N=32,34 in exotic Ca isotopes using laser spectroscopy methods”. Dr Bruno outlined the results of his “Underground measurement of hydrogen-burning reactions on 17,18O at energies of astrophysical interest”, carried out during his PhD, completed in 2017 at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Dr Rodriguez Sanchez, who obtained his PhD in 2015 from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, reported on “Pre- and post-saddle fission dynamics using lead on proton reactions in complete kinematics measurements”.
The Giersch Foundation sponsored the 2018 PhD prizes.
