The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) and TRIUMF are pleased to announce that the 2013 CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal for Contributions to Subatomic Physics is awarded to Jens Dilling, TRIUMF, for his leadership in the development and implementation of new ion trapping and precision mass measurement techniques applied to radioactive nuclei which have dramatically advanced our understanding of halo nuclei and the role of 3 body forces in nuclear systems.
Jens commented, "Being awarded the CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Subatomic Physics is tremendous and it means a lot to me personally because of my respect for Erich Vogt and what he helped create at TRIUMF. I see this award as a reflection by the CAP community on my contributions as an experimentalist and the successes we have had with the ISAC facility at TRIUMF, now a world-class rare-isotope beam facility, as well as on the involvement I have had with the SNOLAB facility---another prime example of Canadian scientific leadership on the global scale. I am very, very proud to accept this honor. I thank my fellow CAP members and the broader TRIUMF community for this award."
Ever since he came to Canada with a fresh Ph.D. from Heidelberg ten years ago, Jens Dilling has made Canada a world leader in the use of ion-traps for atomic and nuclear physics. The TRIUMF Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science facility (TITAN) which he proposed, co-designed and built for use at ISAC—the new TRIUMF accelerator complex for rare-isotope beams—has set a new world standard for such trap facilities. (TITAN's construction and operation are funded by NSERC.) TITAN has systematically and dramatically improved, by more than an order of magnitude, the mass measurements of short-lived isotopes in many key pivotal areas. These recent measurements have made scientific breakthroughs for nuclear astrophysics, for the study of the structure of exotic nuclei such as the halo nucleus, Lithium-11, and for the future study of the matrix elements of double-beta decay. TITAN is the most versatile facility anywhere for such studies. It has over produced 25 publications in two years and holds records for measuring the mass of the lightest isotope and the shortest-lived isotope of anywhere else in the world.
Dilling has personally been responsible for much of the new technology of the system. His innovations are being adopted worldwide. Dilling has been an outstanding leader in all of its areas of emerging physics. These brilliant accomplishments have made him one of the top nuclear physicists in the world. He led the organization of the 2010 International Nuclear Physics Conference which returned to Canada for the first time in over forty years. He has supervised many Canadian graduate students who have been recognized with national and international fellowships. Dilling is now the scientific leader at TRIUMF of the large group of scientists spearheading the research with ISAC. In short, he has become a towering figure in Canadian physics.
The purpose of the Vogt Medal is to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to subatomic physics. While the main criterion for awarding the Vogt Medal is the excellence of the research accomplishments, preference will be given for a recent important advance in subatomic physics and to researchers who are still active. The candidate's research should have been done primarily in Canada or in affiliation with a Canadian university, industry or government laboratory. The Vogt Medal was first introduced in 2011.
Prof. Dilling will be presented with the 2013 CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal for Contributions to Subatomic Physics at the 2013 CAP Congress (hosted by the Université de Montréal in Montréal, Québec, from May 27-31) at the end of his plenary talk and will be recognized during the Congress banquet to be held on Thursday, May 30, 2013. Please refer to the Congress program for the schedule of plenary talks by CAP medal winners.
The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate, Institutional, and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics.
TRIUMF is one of the world's leading subatomic physics laboratories. It brings together dedicated physicists and interdisciplinary talent, sophisticated technical resources, and commercial partners in a way that has established the laboratory as a global model of success. Its large user community is composed of international teams of scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students. The advances ensuing from TRIUMF's research will enhance the health and quality of life of millions of Canadians, launch new high-tech companies, create new high specificity drugs, help us to understand the environment, enable the development of new materials, and spur the imaginations of our children who want to know their place in the universe.
--From a CAP press release