Francesco Iachello

Biographical Sketch: 

Francesco Iachello is the Josiah Willard Gibbs Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Physics at Yale University. Prof. Iachello’s work has been dedicated to the study of symmetries in physics through the introduction of models based on symmetry and their application to physical systems. He and his collaborator Akito Arima are the creators of the interacting boson model of nuclei (1976). Iachello also introduced supersymmetry in nuclei (1980) and developed the vibron model of molecules (1981). 

For more information, please see Prof. Iachello’s Brief Scientific Biography. 

Research: 

Current research interests include: (i) theory of quantum phase transitions (QPT) and excited state quantum phase transitions (ESQPT) in Bose- and mixed Bose-Fermi systems, with applications to nuclei and molecules. (ii) theory of double beta decay with and without the emission of two neutrinos for the determination of the neutrino mass. (iii) algebraic theory of clustering with applications to the alpha-clustering structure of light nuclei. 

Education: 

Ph.D. (Theoretical Physics) 1969, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Honors & Awards: 

Selected Awards 

• Eugene Wigner Medal, 1990 

• Tom Bonner Prize, APS, 1993 

• Lise Meiter Medal, EPS, 2002 

• Somaini Volta Prize, 2009 

• Enrico Fermi Prize, IPS, 2010 

Honorary Doctorates: 

• University of Ferrara, Italy, 1992 

• University of Sevilla, Spain, 1992 

• Chung Yuan University, Republic of China, 1993 

• University of Bucharest, Romania, 2005 

• Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, 2016 

• Technical University, Darmstadt, Germany, 2017 

Honorary Professorships: 

• Nanjing University, China, 1995 

• University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 1997 

• Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China, 2017 

Selected Publications: 

Recent Publications: 

• M.A. Caprio, P. Cejnar and F. Iachello, Excited state quantum phase transitions in many-body systems, Ann. Phys. 323 (2008) 1106-1135. 

• J. Kotila and F. Iachello, Phase space factors for double beta decay, Phys. Rev. C 85, 034316 (2012) (13pp). 

• J. Barea, J. Kotila, and F. Iachello, Nuclear matrix elements for double-beta decay, Phys. Rev. C 87, 014315 (2013) (20pp). 

• R. Bijker and F. Iachello, The algebraic cluster model: Structure of 16O, Nucl. Phys. A957, 154-176 (2017). 

• V. Della Rocca, R. Bijker, and F. Iachello, Single-particle levels in cluster potentials, Nucl. Phys. A966, 158-184 (2017). 

• Francesco Iachello List of Select Publications  

• INSPIRE publications