The European Physical Society, through its Nuclear Physics Division, has awarded the 2020 Lise Meitner Prize to Björn Jonson (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden), Piet Van Duppen (KU Leuven, Belgium) and Klaus Blaum (Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany) for their development and application of on-line instrumentation and techniques, for their precise and systematic investigation of properties of nuclei far from stability, and for shaping the scientific program at the online isotope separator facility ISOLDE, CERN.
These three generations of researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear physics, both scientifically, techno-logically and in terms of science administration. Björn Jonson's name stands for the study of the lightest exotic nuclei, namely halo nuclei, whose surprisingly large matter radius he was the first (together with the late Gregers Hansen) to explain. Piet Van Duppen pushed the production and investigation of post-accelerated radioactive beams with REX-ISOLDE, for which he laid the foundation with his early work in Louvain-la-Neuve. Finally, the scientific work of Klaus Blaum is focused on the high-precision determination of nuclear ground state properties with laser and mass spectroscopic methods and the development of new techniques in this field.
Klaus Blaum, Björn Jonson and Piet Van Duppen have played a decisive role in turning a small-scale nuclear-physics experiment at the European Nuclear Research Centre CERN, which focuses mainly on high-energy experiments, into a facility that enjoys high recognition and respect in the CERN environment and has been the undisputed world leader in ISOL facilities for nuclear structure investigations for 50 years. All three have contributed to this outstanding success at CERN in a variety of ways and functions: as ISOLDE Physics Group Leader, chairman of the ISOLDE Collaboration Committee, member or chairman of the CERN scientific advisory committees, of the CERN Research Board and the Scientific Policy Committee, and as organizers of international conferences and schools in the field of nuclei far from stability.
The prize consists of a Medal and a Diploma, in addition to a cash award. The award ceremony of the Lise Meitner Prize 2020 will take place during the ISOLDE workshop on November 26, 2020 as an online event.
The 2020 Lise Meitner Prize was sponsored by GSI/FAIR, Forschungszentrum GmbH, Jülich, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL), Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS), ELI-NP and by Institut de Physique Nucléaire, Orsay.
