ICTP Physicist Awarded Einstein Medal

ICTP emeritus scientist Alexei Smirnov has been awarded the 2016 Albert Einstein Medal by the Bern, Switzerland-based Albert Einstein Society.

The Medal recognizes outstanding scientific work related to Albert Einstein. Smirnov was cited for his pioneering studies on neutrino oscillations, the ability of these elusive particles to change identities as they travel from their source to neutrino detectors on Earth.  Smirnov, whose work on this phenomenon has established him as an authority in the field, is one of the founders of the Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein (MSW) effect, which predicts the influence of matter on neutrino oscillations.

Smirnov's theoretical work on solar neutrinos has influenced the Nobel Prize-winning neutrino-detection experiments in Japan and Canada, as well as at other detectors. The confirmation by those detectors that neutrinos oscillate as they travel solved a puzzle that had stumped physicists for years: why were the number of  detected neutrinos from sources such as the Earth's atmosphere or the Sun lower than the theoretical calculations given? The discovery means that neutrinos, which are assumed to be massless in the Standard Model of particle physics, do have mass, albeit miniscule. Furthermore, the discovery implies that neutrinos mix: that is, neutrinos with definite masses have a composite flavour made of electron, muon and tau neutrinos. This is a historic insight for particle physics.

The Albert Einstein Medal was established in 1979. Past winners include Stephen Hawking, Edward Witten and Thomas Kibble. The full list of winners is here.