Pierre Sikivie (born 29 October 1949) is an American
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 ...
and currently the Distinguished Professor of
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 ...
at
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
in
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...
. He invented the axion haloscope and the axion helioscope and has played an important role in the development of axion cosmology.
Academic career
Sikivie completed his Licencie en Sciences from
University of Liège
The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French.
History
The university was foun ...
, Belgium in 1970 and completed his Ph.D. 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 ...
under
Feza Gürsey
Feza Gürsey (; April 7, 1921 – April 13, 1992) was a Turkish mathematician and physicist. Among his contributions to theoretical physics, his work on the chiral model and on SU(6) symmetry of the quark model are the most well-known.
Early l ...
from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
in 1975 with thesis ''Lepton and Hadron Spectra in Universal Gauge Theories''. He was a research associate at Dept. of Phys., Univ. of Maryland from 1975 to 1977 and at
SLAC
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, United States. Founded in 1962, the laboratory is now sponsored ...
from 1977 to 1979. He became Senior Fellow 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 ...
from 1979 to 1981 and assistant professor at University of Florida from 1981 to 1984. He became an associate professor of physics at
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
in 1984, and promoted to professor in 1988. He received his present title of "Distinguished Professor" in 2012. He is the 2020 recipient of the
Sakurai Prize
The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, also commonly referred to as just the Sakurai Prize, is a prize awarded by the American Physical Society. It is presented annually at the Society's April meeting and honors "outstanding a ...
and the 2025 recipient of the Galileo Galilei Medal.
In 1994 Sikivie was elected a Fellow of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1997–1998.
Dark matter axion physics
Sikivie played a crucial role in the development of the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (
ADMX). He collaborated with his colleagues,
Neil S. Sullivan and
David B. Tanner
David Burnham Tanner is a Distinguished Professor of Physics and an affiliate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida.
He studied at the University of Virginia where he received his B. A. degree. He has a PhD in ...
, at
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
and developed the experimental details of ADMX.
[ ] In 1983, Sikivie, along with
J. Preskill,
M. B. Wise,
F. Wilczek,
L. F. Abbott,
M. Dine, and
W. Fischler, discovered that cosmic axions created from mis-alignment mechanism can be a substantial fraction of Dark Matter. Later Sikivie laid the theoretical ground for dark matter axion detections such as the
ADMX.
See also
*
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 ...
*
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 ...
*
ADMX
*
IAXO
References
External links
Personal Page of Pierre SikivieThe ADMX
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sikivie, Pierre
1949 births
Living people
People from Sint-Truiden
21st-century American physicists
University of Liège alumni
Yale University alumni
Fellows of the American Physical Society
University of Florida faculty
American theoretical physicists
People associated with CERN
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients