Physicist Stuart Pittel honored for work with scientists worldwide

Stuart Pittel, director of the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware: “Much of my research is aimed at developing theories to describe the properties of nuclei, and particularly nuclei in exotic regimes, nuclei that are far from the valley of stability.”

2:13 p.m., April 1, 2004--An international conference to honor the influential contributions to nuclear physics made by Stuart Pittel, director of the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware, will be held this spring in Mexico.

The event, titled “Nuclear Physics, Large and Small: Microscopic Studies of Collective Phenomena,” is scheduled April 19-22 at the Hacienda Cocoyoc in the state of Morelos.

Topics will focus on recent developments in areas in which Pittel has carried out research, including large-scale microscopic descriptions of nuclear structure, simple models that capture the essential physics of nuclear collective properties and issues as fundamental as the origin of deformation and shape changes in nuclei.

“I am very pleased and very honored,” Pittel said of the conference. “It is a recognition of my moderately long career and my scientific contributions. It also is a recognition of my relationship with the scientific community.”

While those relationships stretch worldwide, Pittel has developed a special relationship with the Mexican scientific community, recognized when he was named a Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences in 1995.

The conference is being held at the Hotel Cocoyoc in Mexico because “the organizers know it is a place I enjoy very much,” Pittel said.

Pittel has spent the bulk of his career with the Bartol Research Institute, a scientific organization that was founded in Philadelphia in the early 20th century by Henry W. Bartol and that affiliated with the University of Delaware in 1977.

Pittel became interested in nuclear physics as an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and began focusing on nuclear structure physics as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

Modern nuclear structure physics is in an exciting “new era,” Pittel said, because “there has been a dramatic expansion of the range of nuclei open to experimental study.” This has happened in large part because of the development of rare isotope accelerators.

“Much of my research is aimed at developing theories to describe the properties of nuclei,” Pittel said, “and particularly nuclei in exotic regimes, nuclei that are far from the valley of stability.”

He is currently involved in two projects that are aimed at “developing new methods to describe the properties of nuclei out to the extremes.”

Pittel also has interest in the application of nuclear physics, or ideas drawn from nuclear physics, to other areas. As an example, “Nuclear physics plays a role in addressing problems in astrophysics,” he said, noting that there are important astrophysical problems that rely on the use of nuclear detectors.

“I have also been developing a series of new quantum models that can be used to provide insight into issues of importance in nuclear physics and many other fields,” he added.

Pittel noted that the conference will focus on nuclear structure, while also touching on several related areas. He added that he is quite pleased by the turnout. “It is not just the number of people but the quality,” he said. “They are among the leaders in the field, without question.”

Among those attending will be Tom Gaisser, a colleague at the Bartol Research Institute.

Organizers Roelof Bijker and Alejandro Frank of the Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico have high praise for Pittel and his “essential contributions to nuclear physics.”

They said that among the most important of his contributions is his pioneering work on the relation between the neutron-proton interaction and nuclear deformation, carried out in the 1970s in collaboration with Pedro Federman.

“These ideas were fundamental to establish a bridge between the collective and single-particle views of the nucleus, a connection which is now considered classical,” they said, adding, “The influence of this work has carried over to current frontier research, such as its relevance to neutron-proton pairing in exotic nuclei and as a mechanism for shape-phase transitions.”

“In addition to his exceptional scientific work, Stuart has had an important role in establishing high-level scientific collaborations with many different countries, including Mexico, where he was recently made a fellow of the Mexican Academy of Sciences,” they said.

Rick Casten of the Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale University, another member of the organizing committee, said Pittel “has had a profound influence on the study of atomic nuclei, providing some of the most important and pioneering developments in our theoretical understanding of them.”

Casten also gave Pittel high marks for his work with scientists from all nations, not just those generally understood to be on the forefront of nuclear physics research.

Pittel “has made special and very successful efforts to work with these people, to involve them in forefront research, to help them make further contacts in the First World and to help them become known internationally.”

Such contributions “have benefited both those scientists and the field of nuclear physics because they have made significant contributions that wouldn't have been made were it not for Stuart’s effort,” he said.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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