Ettore Fiorini (19 April 1933 – 9 April 2023) was an Italian experimental particle physicist. He studied the physics of the

weak interaction In nuclear physics and particle physics, the weak interaction, weak force or the weak nuclear force, is one of the four known fundamental interactions, with the others being electromagnetism, the strong interaction, and gravitation. It is th ...

and was a pioneer in the field of

double beta decay In nuclear physics, double beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which two neutrons are simultaneously transformed into two protons, or vice versa, inside an atomic nucleus. As in single beta decay, this process allows the atom to move cl ...

. He served as a professor of nuclear and subnuclear physics at the

University of Milano-Bicocca The University of Milano-Bicocca (, UNIMIB) is a public university located in Milan, Italy, providing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education. Established in 1998, it was ranked by the ''Times Higher Education'' 2014 ranking of the ...

Early life

Fiorini was born on 19 April 1933 in

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

. His father was the eminent surgeon

Enoch Fiorini Enoch ( ; ''Henṓkh'') is a biblical figure and patriarch prior to Noah's flood, and the son of Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. The text of the Book of Genesis says Enoch lived 365 years ...

Career

Fiorini graduated in physics from the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

in 1955. After working as a research associate at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

from 1959 to 1969, he returned to Milan for the remainder of his academic career, except for a spell in Geneva at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

(1979–82). He carried out the bulk of his research in Italy at the underground laboratories of

Mont Blanc Mont Blanc (, ) is a mountain in the Alps, rising above sea level, located right at the Franco-Italian border. It is the highest mountain in Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains, the second-most prominent mountain in Europe (after Mount E ...

and

Gran Sasso Gran Sasso d'Italia (; ) is a massif in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. Its highest peak, Corno Grande , is the highest mountain in the Apennines, and the second-highest mountain in Italy outside the Alps. The mountain lies within Gran Sasso ...

Scientific achievements

Fiorini had a longstanding research interest in

s and related phenomena. In the 1970s he collaborated with

André Lagarrigue André Lagarrigue (1924 – 14 January 1975) was a French particle physicist. Being the initiator of the Gargamelle experiment at CERN, his work was of paramount importance in the discovery of neutral currents — the first experimental indicatio ...

to create the

Gargamelle Gargamelle was a heavy liquid bubble chamber detector in operation at CERN between 1970 and 1979. It was designed to detect neutrinos and antineutrinos, which were produced with a beam from the Proton Synchrotron (PS) between 1970 and 1976, ...

detector, a giant bubble chamber at

, and with

Carlo Rubbia Carlo Rubbia (born 31 March 1934) is an Italian particle physicist and inventor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Simon van der Meer for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN. Early life and educatio ...

and

Riccardo Giacconi Riccardo Giacconi ( , ; October 6, 1931 – December 9, 2018) was an Italian-American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. Biography Born in ...

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...

experiments that contributed to the discovery of weak

neutral currents Weak neutral current interactions are one of the ways in which subatomic particles can interact by means of the weak force. These interactions are mediated by the Z boson. The discovery of weak neutral currents was a significant step towar ...

, thereby providing the first empirical test of the

electroweak theory In particle physics, the electroweak interaction or electroweak force is the unified description of two of the fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism (electromagnetic interaction) and the weak interaction. Although these two forc ...

. Fiorini was a pioneering investigator of

neutrinoless double beta decay Neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) is a commonly proposed and experimentally pursued theoretical radioactive decay process that would prove a Majorana particle, Majorana nature of the neutrino particle. To this day, it has not been found. ...

. In the 1960s he proposed and performed the first study of

(0νββ) in ⁷⁶Ge using

germanium Germanium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid or a nonmetal in the carbon group that is chemically ...

diode A diode is a two-Terminal (electronics), terminal electronic component that conducts electric current primarily in One-way traffic, one direction (asymmetric electrical conductance, conductance). It has low (ideally zero) Electrical resistance ...

s. In subsequent decades he was involved with two far larger collaborations at underground facility of the

Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the largest underground research center in the world. Situated below Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, it is well known for particle physics research by the INFN. In addition to a surface portion of t ...

: the CUORICINO and

CUORE The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) – also ; ) – is a particle physics experiment located underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Assergi, Italy. CUORE was designed primarily as a search for neutr ...

studies of ¹³⁰Te. The results of these experiments have relevance for the study of

dark matter In astronomy, dark matter is an invisible and hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is implied by gravity, gravitational effects that cannot be explained by general relat ...

and solar

axion An axion () is a hypothetical elementary particle originally theorized in 1978 independently by Frank Wilczek and Steven Weinberg as the Goldstone boson of Peccei–Quinn theory, which had been proposed in 1977 to solve the strong CP problem ...

s. In the 1980s he directed the NUSEX (Nucleon Stability Experiment) investigation of proton decay located in the Mont Blanc underground laboratory. NUSEX helped determine the limits of proton stability, applying innovative methods to correct for the background effects of cosmic rays. Fiorini also collaborated on the

GALLEX GALLEX or Gallium Experiment was a radiochemical neutrino detection experiment that ran between 1991 and 1997 at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). This project was performed by an international collaboration of French, German, Ita ...

project at Gran Sasso that provided the first observations of low-energy neutrinos produced by the initial proton fusion step of the proton-proton chain reaction, confirming that this was the dominant fusion process occurring in the sun. His other research activities include the development of

microbolometer A microbolometer is a specific type of bolometer used as a detector in a thermal camera. Infrared radiation with wavelengths between 7.5–14 μm strikes the detector material, heating it, and thus changing its electrical resistance. This resista ...

s for X-ray

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectro ...

and high-precision measurements of the transition energies and lifetimes of nuclei, results which could help measure the mass of

antineutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that it ...

s. Fiorini later conducted several archaeometric studies, using non-destructive techniques such as

neutron activation analysis Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a nuclear reaction, nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of chemical element, elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete Sampling (statistics), sampling of elements as it disregards the ...

to discover the properties of historical materials. He proved, using samples of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

's hair, that the former emperor did not die from arsenic poisoning. Another project demonstrated the provenance of lead ingots from a Roman shipwreck — before repurposing them for the lining of the CUORE detector.

Death

Fiorini died on 9 April 2023, at the age of 89.

Awards

Fiorini received the 2007

Enrico Fermi Prize The Enrico Fermi Prize, first awarded in 2001, is given by the Italian Physical Society (Società Italiana di Fisica). It is a yearly award of €30,000 honoring one or more Members of the Society who have "particularly honoured physics with thei ...

in recognition for his work on weak neutral currents and solar neutrinos. For his work on neutrinoless double beta decay, he was awarded the 2012

Bruno Pontecorvo Prize The Bruno Pontecorvo Prize () is an award for elementary particle physics, established in 1995 by the JINR in Dubna to commemorate Bruno Pontecorvo. The prize is mainly given for neutrino physics, which was Pontecorvo's principal research field, ...

. He has been a corresponding member of the since 1988.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiorini, Ettore 1933 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Italian physicists 21st-century Italian physicists Academic staff of the University of Milano-Bicocca People associated with CERN People from Verona