Gian Francesco Giudice (born 25 January 1961) is an Italian

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

working 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 ...

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

Academic career

After graduating in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

in 1984, Giudice obtained in 1988 his PhD in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

from the

International School for Advanced Studies The International School for Advanced Studies (Italian: ''Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati''; SISSA) is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy. SISSA is active in th ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

. Between 1988 and 1990 he was Research Associate at the

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Fermilab's Main Injector, two miles (3.3 k ...

near

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Between 1990 and 1992 he was Research Fellow in the Physics Department of the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

, in the group led by

Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic inter ...

. After being employed by the

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on the 8th of August 1 ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in 1993 he moved to

, where is currently the Head of the

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

Department. Academician of the

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and

Accademia Galileiana The ''Accademia Galileiana'' ('Galilean academy') is a learned society in the city of Padua in Italy. The full name of the society is ('Galilean academy of science, letters and the arts in Padova'). It was founded as the in Padua in 1599, on th ...

, he has been awarded the Jacques Solvay Chair in Physics at the

Université libre de Bruxelles The (French language, French, ; lit. Free University of Brussels; abbreviated ULB) is a French-speaking research university in Brussels, Belgium. It has three campuses: the ''Solbosch'' campus (in the City of Brussels and Ixelles), the ''Plain ...

(2013), Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...

(2019), Sackler Distinguished Lecturer at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

(2020), Chandrasekhar Lecturer at

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...

(2022), Erwin-Schrödinger Professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

(2023).

Research

The research activity of Giudice mainly deals with the formulation of new theories that extend our present knowledge of the particle world toward smaller distances. He is also studying how these theories can be applied to

in order to describe the early stages of the history of our

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

. His most notable results are in the areas of

supersymmetry Supersymmetry is a Theory, theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between Particle physics, particles with integer Spin (physics), spin (''bosons'') and particles with half-integer spin (''fermions''). It propo ...

extra dimensions In physics, extra dimensions or extra-dimensional spaces are proposed as additional space or time dimensions beyond the (3 + 1) typical of observed spacetime — meaning 5-dimensional or higher. such as the first attempts based on the K ...

, electroweak physics,

collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Compared to other particle accelerators in which the moving particles collide with a stationary matter target, collid ...

physics,

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 leptogenesis. Together with physicist Riccardo Barbieri, he proposed a widely used criterion to test the degree of naturalness of a supersymmetric theory that achieves electroweak symmetry breaking. He co-invented the Giudice-Masiero mechanism, which is the leading explanation for the

mu problem In theoretical physics, the problem is a problem of supersymmetric theories, concerned with understanding the parameters of the theory. Background The supersymmetric Higgs mass parameter appears as the following term in the superpotential: . ...

supergravity In theoretical physics, supergravity (supergravity theory; SUGRA for short) is a modern field theory that combines the principles of supersymmetry and general relativity; this is in contrast to non-gravitational supersymmetric theories such as ...

. He has made fundamental contributions to the construction of Gauge Mediation, and he is a co-author of the first papers proposing Anomaly Mediation and Split Supersymmetry. He is one of the proponents of a method to compute

quantum effects Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is the foundation of a ...

in theories with broken

through

analytic continuation In complex analysis, a branch of mathematics, analytic continuation is a technique to extend the domain of definition of a given analytic function. Analytic continuation often succeeds in defining further values of a function, for example in a ne ...

into

superspace Superspace is the coordinate space of a theory exhibiting supersymmetry. In such a formulation, along with ordinary space dimensions ''x'', ''y'', ''z'', ..., there are also "anticommuting" dimensions whose coordinates are labeled in Grassmann num ...

. Well known and much used in

LHC The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, and ...

studies is his method to describe

graviton In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathematical problem with re ...

interactions in theories with extra spatial dimensions. He is also one of the originators of the idea of Minimal Flavor Violation, a paradigm to characterize the effects of flavor transitions in new theories of

. After the discovery of the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

, he computed the probability that the Higgs vacuum undergoes

quantum tunnelling In physics, quantum tunnelling, barrier penetration, or simply tunnelling is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which an object such as an electron or atom passes through a potential energy barrier that, according to classical mechanics, shoul ...

, finding the surprising result that the

is in a critical state which will eventually end in a cosmic collapse.

Support of particle accelerator projects

Giudice has played an active role in studying the physics potential of

particle accelerators A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

, supporting and advocating several new projects at

and in other laboratories worldwide. He has been a member of the ''LHC Experiments Committee'' (the body that reviews the activity of the experimental groups at the

), the ''European Committee for Future Accelerators'' (the advisory body for long-range planning of high-energy facilities in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

), the preparatory group for the 2020 European Strategy for Particle Physics, and numerous advisory and review committees of research institutes worldwide.

Science popularization

Besides his research work, Giudice is active in popularization of science and outreach, often giving public lectures on

and related topics, and participating in science festivals and other events. He is the author of
A Zeptospace Odyssey
', a popular-science book on the physics of the

, which has been finalist for th
2012 Galileo Literary Prize
for popular science and the Prize Pianeta Galileo 2013. The book, originally written in English, has been translated into Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Korean.G. F. Giudice,

', Humanist, Seoul 2017, .

References

External links

Scientific publications of G. F. Giudice
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1 ...

''A Zeptospace Odyssey'' website

2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Giudice, Gian Francesco 1961 births People associated with CERN 20th-century Italian physicists Living people Particle physicists Scientists from Padua Italian theoretical physicists University of Padua alumni People associated with Fermilab 21st-century Italian physicists Italian science communicators