François Baron Englert (French: [ɑ̃ɡlɛʁ];
born 6 November 1932) is a Belgian theoretical
physicist and 2013 Nobel prize laureate (shared
with Peter Higgs).
He is Professor emeritus at the Université
libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he is member
of the Service de Physique Théorique. He
is also a Sackler Professor by Special Appointment
in the School of Physics and Astronomy at
Tel Aviv University and a member of the Institute
for Quantum Studies at Chapman University
in California. He was awarded the 2010 J.
J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle
Physics (with Gerry Guralnik, C. R. Hagen,
Tom Kibble, Peter Higgs, and Robert Brout),
the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2004 (with Brout
and Higgs) and the High Energy and Particle
Prize of the European Physical Society (with
Brout and Higgs) in 1997 for the mechanism
which unifies short and long range interactions
by generating massive gauge vector bosons.
He has made contributions in statistical physics,
quantum field theory, cosmology, string theory
and supergravity. He is the recipient of the
2013 Prince of Asturias Award in technical
and scientific research, together with Peter
Higgs and the CERN.
Englert was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in
Physics, together with Peter Higgs for the
discovery of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism.
== Early life ==
François Englert is a Holocaust survivor.
He was born in a Belgian Jewish family. During
the German occupation of Belgium in World
War II, he had to conceal his Jewish identity
and live in orphanages and children's homes
in the towns of Dinant, Lustin, Stoumont and,
finally, Annevoie-Rouillon. These towns were
eventually liberated by the US Army.
François Englert was born to a Jewish family
in Belgium, on November 6, 1932. His parents
moved to Belgium from Poland with his brother
in 1924. They worked hard, and even had a
textile shop. Things got worse in May of 1940
when the Nazi Germans invaded Belgium. The
whole family survived the war, but it was
a difficult task. They had to hide their religion,
and hide who they were. To increase their
chances of survival the family split up. Englert
did not know where his parents were hiding.
They had to hide with strangers, who showed
kindness in a time of need. In Lustin, the
owners of a café, Camille and Louise Jourdan
took care of him. His family reunited as they
fled from Lustin to Annevoie. In Annevoie
there was a priest named Warnon. He presented
the Englert family to the village as Christians.
He even baptized François, so that he could
attend the Catholic College, Notre-Dame de
Bellevue. The priest also enrolled François’s
brother in school. After the war ended, François
did his best to continue his education, and
his life.
== Academic career ==
He graduated as an electromechanical engineer
in 1955 from the Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB) where he received his PhD in physical
sciences in 1959. From 1959 until 1961, he
worked at Cornell University, first as a research
associate of Robert Brout and then as assistant
professor. He then returned to the ULB where
he became a university professor and was joined
there by Robert Brout who, in 1980, with Englert
coheaded the theoretical physics group. In
1998 Englert became professor emeritus. In
1984 Professor Englert was first appointed
as a Sackler Professor by Special Appointment
in the School of Physics and Astronomy at
Tel-Aviv University. Englert joined Chapman
University’s Institute for Quantum Studies
in 2011, where he serves as a Distinguished
Visiting Professor.
== The Brout–Englert–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble
mechanism ==
Brout and Englert showed in 1964 that gauge
vector fields, abelian and non-abelian, could
acquire mass if empty space were endowed with
a particular type of structure that one encounters
in material systems. Focusing on the failure
of the Goldstone theorem for gauge fields,
Higgs reached essentially the same result.
A third paper on the subject was written later
in the same year by Gerald Guralnik, C. R.
Hagen, and Tom Kibble. The three papers written
on this boson discovery by Higgs, Englert
and Brout, and Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble were
each recognized as milestone papers for this
discovery by Physical Review Letters 50th
anniversary celebration. While each of these
famous papers took similar approaches, the
contributions and differences between the
1964 PRL symmetry breaking papers is noteworthy.
To illustrate the structure, consider a ferromagnet
which is composed of atoms each equipped with
a tiny magnet. When these magnets are lined
up, the inside of the ferromagnet bears a
strong analogy to the way empty space can
be structured. Gauge vector fields that are
sensitive to this structure of empty space
can only propagate over a finite distance.
Thus they mediate short range interactions
and acquire mass. Those fields that are not
sensitive to the structure propagate unhindered.
They remain massless and are responsible for
the long range interactions. In this way,
the mechanism accommodates within a single
unified theory both short and long-range interactions.
Brout and Englert, Higgs, and Gerald Guralnik,
C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble introduced as
agent of the vacuum structure a scalar field
(most often called the Higgs field) which
many physicists view as the agent responsible
for the masses of fundamental particles. Brout
and Englert also showed that the mechanism
may remain valid if the scalar field is replaced
by a more structured agent such as a fermion
condensate. Their approach led them to conjecture
that the theory is renormalizable. The eventual
proof of renormalizability, a major achievement
of twentieth century physics, is due to Gerardus
't Hooft and Martinus Veltman who were awarded
the 1999 Nobel Prize for this work. The Brout–Englert–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble
mechanism is the building stone of the electroweak
theory of elementary particles and laid the
foundation of a unified view of the basic
laws of nature.
== Major awards ==
1978 First Prize in the International Gravity
Contest (with R. Brout and E. Gunzig), awarded
by the Gravity Research Foundation for the
essay "The Causal Universe".
1982 Francqui Prize, awarded by the Francqui
Foundation once every four years in exact
sciences "For his contribution to the theoretical
understanding of spontaneous symmetry breaking
in the physics of fundamental interactions,
where, with Robert Brout, he was the first
to show that spontaneous symmetry breaking
in gauge theories gives mass to the gauge
particles, for his extensive contributions
in other domains, such as solid state physics,
statistical mechanics, quantum field theory,
general relativity and cosmology, for the
originality and the fundamental importance
of these achievements".
1997 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize
(with R. Brout and P.W. Higgs), awarded by
the European Physical Society "For formulating
for the first time a self-consistent theory
of charged massive vector bosons which became
the foundation of the electroweak theory of
elementary particles".
2004 Wolf Prize in Physics (with R. Brout
and P.W. Higgs), awarded by the Wolf Foundation
"For pioneering work that has led to the insight
of mass generation, whenever a local gauge
symmetry is realized asymmetrically in the
world of sub-atomic particles".
2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle
Physics (with Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Higgs,
and Brout) awarded by The American Physical
Society "For elucidation of the properties
of spontaneous symmetry breaking in four-dimensional
relativistic gauge theory and of the mechanism
for the consistent generation of vector boson
masses".
By Royal Decree of 8 July 2013 François Englert
was ennobled a baron by King Albert II of
Belgium.
2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Peter
Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a
mechanism that contributes to our understanding
of the origin of mass of subatomic particles,
and which recently was confirmed through the
discovery of the predicted fundamental particle,
by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s
Large Hadron Collider".
2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical
and Scientific Research (with Peter Higgs
and CERN) "for the theoretical prediction
and experimental detection of the Higgs boson".
== References ==
== External links ==
Quotations related to François Englert at
Wikiquote
François Englert's personal webpage
