Accelerator Group Prizes 2011 announced

With the introduction of a 3-year cycle among the Asian, European and North American Particle Accelerator Conferences, the European Physical Society Accelerator Group is pleased to announce the winners of the EPS-AG / IPAC'11 Accelerator Prizes.

The Prizes Selection Committee, under the Chairmanship of Christopher Prior, Oxford University and STFC/RAL/ASTeC, met on Wednesday, 27 April and decided the following prizes, to be presented during the second international event, IPAC'11, to take place from 5-9 September, 2011, in San Sebastian, Spain.

Url: http://www.ipac11.org

European Physical Society - Accelerator Group Prizes 2011

The Rolf Wideröe Prize for "outstanding work in the accelerator field without age limit" is awarded to Professor Shin-ichi Kurokawa of the KEK Laboratory at Tsukuba, Japan. In demonstrating excellent leadership over many years, Prof. Kurokawa has made significant contributions to the automated control and performance of high-energy colliders, as well as to international collaboration in the field of particle accelerators. Following early work on the KEK Proton Synchrotron, Prof. Kurokawa took responsibility for the design, construction and operation of the control system for TRISTAN, providing for the first time full computer control for a large accelerator in Japan. He then set up and led the strong team that brought into being the KEKB B-factory, which, through his imaginative design choices, was to become the world's highest luminosity machine. In addition, Prof. Kurokawa has played a seminal role in the development of accelerator science throughout the Far East. He has worked ceaselessly to promote close collaboration between accelerator communities in Europe, the United States and Japan, and has recognised the importance and potential of China, India and other developing countries in the future of accelerators worldwide. Through his participation in international committees and his organising of countless national and international accelerator workshops, conferences and schools, Prof. Kurokawa has inspired a whole generation of accelerator physicists, many of whom have benefited from his vision and will go on to become tomorrow's leaders in accelerator science.

The Gersch Budker Prize, for "a recent significant, original contribution to the accelerator field, with no age limit," is awarded to Dr. Yasushige Yano, senior adviser and former director of the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan. As its Chief Scientist, Dr. Yano was responsible for turning the RIKEN Cyclotron Laboratory into the world’s most powerful source of cw radioactive isotope beams for all elements from helium to uranium. His achievements were based on an ambitious plan involving a new ECR ion source and RFQ injector, followed by a chain of three rings that required the development and successful construction of the world's first superconducting sector-magnet cyclotrons. The feat is unparalleled in cyclotron laboratories and has initiated major advances in cyclotron technology. The first beam of aluminium ions was accelerated in 2005 followed by a beam of uranium ions a year later. Known as the Radioactive Ion Beam Factory (RIBF), the complex is now a world-leader in the production of radioactive ion beams. Its flawless operation has in a short time led to the discovery of many unknown nuclei and is, overall, expected to reach more than 1000 so far unknown nuclei for key studies in nuclear structure, nuclear matter properties and nuclear astrophysics.

The Frank Sacherer Prize, for "an individual in the early part of his or her career, having made a recent significant, original contribution to the accelerator field," is awarded to Dr. Rogelio Tomás García of CERN. Among many significant contributions in a relatively short career, Dr. Tomás is particularly well known for his innovative work in measuring resonance driving terms and the localisation of lattice errors, for optics design including non-linear properties of beam lines with applications to the final focus of linear colliders, and for his contributions to the LHC operations and its upgrades. Demonstrating talent as both a theorist and an experimenter, Dr. Tomás' work on the optimisation of the CLIC beam delivery system has resulted in a predicted increase in beam luminosity of 70%. His proposals to improve the KEK-ATF2 prototype final-focus optics have addressed several critical issues in the design of future linear colliders. He has designed an interaction region for an LHeC ring-linac collider that is both innovative and insightful. He has also made key contributions to the LHC interaction-region upgrade design and to LHC optics measurement and corrections. In a short time, Dr Tomás has impressed as one of the most ingenious and efficient beam optics experts at CERN, with a promising research career in front of him.

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