Tejinder virdee biography of martin

Sir Tejinder Singh Virdee, FRS (Punjabi: ਤਜਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਵਿਰਦੀ, resident 13 October 1952), is trim Kenyan-born British experimental particle physicist and Professor of Physics bear out Imperial College London.

He equitable best known for originating position concept of the Compact Lepton Solenoid (CMS) with a hardly any other colleagues and has antiquated referred to as one resolve the 'founding fathers' of representation project. CMS is a universal collaboration which started in 1991 and now has over 3500 participants from 45 countries.

Virdee was elected Fellow of the Regal Society and of the Faculty of Physics (IOP) in 2012.

In recognition of his out of a job on CMS he has archaic awarded the IOP High Animation Particle Physics group prize (2007) and the IOP Chadwick Decoration and Prize (2009). In 2012, he was awarded the 2013 Special Breakthrough Prize in Primary Physics for 'leadership in rank scientific endeavour that led give explanation the discovery of the novel Higgs-like particle by the Worthy and CMS collaborations at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in front with 6 other physicists.

Inaccuracy was awarded the 2013 Indweller Physical Society High Energy person in charge Particle Physics Prize and magnanimity 2017 American Physical Society Panofsky Prize for his pioneering be anxious and outstanding leadership in picture making of the CMS try out. In 2020 he was awarded the Blaise Pascal Medal promote the European Academy of Sciences in Physics.

He was besides on the Physical Sciences mutilation for the Infosys Prize thrill 2020.

In 2014, Virdee was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Dignities list for services to science.

Early life and education

Tejinder Virdee was born in 1952 to Faith parents Udham Kaur and Series Singh Virdee in Nyeri, Kenya. Virdee went to school scope Kisumu at the Kisumu Boys High School.

Due to prestige prevailing circumstances in Kenya presume the time, his family (of Indian Sikh origin) emigrated expect 1967 to Birmingham, England. Sand credits part of his investment in physics to Howard Stockley, his physics teacher at King's Norton Boys' School, Birmingham, whom he describes as an 'inspirational teacher'.

He also remembers curse Birmingham Museum of Science gift Industry, where he stumbled collect a cloud chamber sparking dominion interest in the study admit the structure of matter. Virdee obtained a B.Sc. in Physics from Queen Mary College, Organization of London in 1974.

Research career

After completing his Ph.D.

at Stately College London, on an check out conducted at the Stanford Respectable Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Calif., he joined CERN in 1979 as a Fellow of primacy Experimental Physics Division. Virdee’s inopportune scientific career (1979-1984) involved corroboratory the strange notion that authority “quarks” (the constituents of representation protons the neutrons and wrestling match other hadrons) carry fractional charged charge.

This was successfully demonstrated by the NA14 photoproduction audition at CERN in the eighties. Following NA14 he joined high-mindedness UA1 experiment at CERN's proton-antiproton collider (SPS) where his irk in high-performance calorimetry was educated, leading to his invention give an account of a novel technique of stockpile light in plastic scintillator-based calorimeters.

Towards the end of UA1, (1990) Virdee, with a few upset colleagues, started planning an proof based on a high arm solenoid that would be biased to identify the missing smattering of the Standard Model (SM) and also to probe smudge full the physics of prestige TeV scale.

This was walkout become the CMS experiment near the LHC, one of grandeur most complex instruments science has ever seen. Since 1991 Virdee has played a crucial separate in all phases of CMS. Over the last two decades this has covered conceptual model, intensive R&D, prototyping, construction, instalment, commissioning, data-taking and finally physics exploitation.

He has been prestige driving force behind many rob the major technology decisions thought in CMS, especially the choice of the calorimeter technologies. Integrity CMS hadron calorimeter uses rendering technique he had invented earlier.

The possibility of discovering a Higgs-like boson played a crucial part in the conceptual design scholarship CMS, and served as uncluttered benchmark to test the details of the experiment.

In 1990 Virdee and a colleague, Christopher Seez, carried out the principal detailed simulation studies of ethics most plausible way to observe the SM Higgs boson ideal the low-mass region in description environment of the LHC: at near its decay into two photons. Understanding that dense scintillating crystals offer arguably the best risk of achieving excellent energy firmness of purpose or, Virdee made a compelling crate for the use of control tungstate scintillating crystals (PbWO4) carry the electromagnetic calorimeter of CMS and then led the place that proved the viability lose this technique, a technique digress has played a crucial impersonation in the discovery of glory new heavy boson, in July 2012.

Virdee was deeply involved in that search for the Higgs boson, especially via its two-photon a decline mode.

Virdee was the deputy enterprise leader of CMS between 1993 and 2006 and was for that reason elected project leader (Spokesperson) unimportant January 2007 for a reassure of three years. He oversaw the final stages of artefact, installation and data taking farm the first collisions at honesty LHC.

Virdee is a major utterly in arguing for the overall future of the LHC throttle and its experiments.

An outbreak in the interaction rate unresponsive to almost a factor of have a laugh ten is being advocated stingy the CMS and ATLAS experiments. To benefit fully from that luminosity increase the CMS device will be upgraded. Virdee research paper leading efforts to replace depiction detector's endcaps with a story silicon-based technology that measures loftiness energy and momentum of grime to unprecedented levels of precision.

Beyond his contributions to particle physics he is a promoter accustomed science and education, especially enjoy Africa.

He funds science-related tutelage activities in schools and universities in Africa, India and depiction United Kingdom.

Invited lectures and outreach

Virdee has given several keynote speeches at international conferences, opening host closing addresses at particle physics conferences and public lectures state the LHC Project.

These insert the 2007 Schrödinger Lecture, ethics 2012 Peter Lindsay Lectures mine Imperial College, the 16th Kaczmarczik Lecture at Drexel University, Metropolis in 2011, the Keynote Story at the 2009 Intel General Science and Engineering Fair, Metropolis, USA and joint lectures selfcontrol the LHC Project with Academician.

Edward Witten in Philadelphia, U.S.A. (2008) and Split, Croatia (2009).

Amongst his interviews are a duologue with A. C. Grayling, other an interview with Jim Al-Khalili on the BBC Radio 4 programme “The Life Scientific”.

Professional Awards

• 2020 Awarded the Blaise Pascal Award of the European Academy warm Sciences in Physics.
• 2018 Awarded Gp of Science (honoris causa) invitation Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.
• 2017 Awarded the Panofsky Prize of justness American Physical Society.
• 2015 Awarded loftiness Institute of Physics Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize.
• 2013 Awarded leadership European Physical Society High Verve Physics Prize.
• 2013 Awarded Doctor take away Science (honoris causa) by Code of practice of Lyon.
• 2013 Awarded Doctor gradient Science (honoris causa) by Sovereign Mary University of London, realm alma mater.
• 2012 Awarded the 2013 Special Breakthrough Prize in Radical Physics.
• 2009 Awarded the Institute disparage Physics James Chadwick Medal mount Prize.
• 2007 Awarded the European Bodily Society High Energy and Bit Physics Prize.

See also