SAASST News

Sunday, 13 March 2022 00:18

Prof. John Ellis Courtesy Visit to SAASST

From left to right: Dr. Antonios Manousakis (UoS/SAASST), Prof. John Ellis's Wife, Prof. Ilias Fernini (UoS/SAASST), Prof. Roland Walter (Univ. of Geneva), Prof. John Ellis, and Prof. Amine Ahriche (UoS/DAPA). Photo Credit: Mr. Allaeddine Habachi (SAASST). From left to right: Dr. Antonios Manousakis (UoS/SAASST), Prof. John Ellis's Wife, Prof. Ilias Fernini (UoS/SAASST), Prof. Roland Walter (Univ. of Geneva), Prof. John Ellis, and Prof. Amine Ahriche (UoS/DAPA). Photo Credit: Mr. Allaeddine Habachi (SAASST).

The Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences, and Technology (SAASST) was honored to receive the visit of Prof. John Ellis from King's College of London on Mar. 09, 2022. John Ellis currently holds the Clerk Maxwell Professorship of Theoretical Physics at King's College in London. After his 1971 Ph.D. from Cambridge University, he worked at SLAC, Caltech, and CERN (Geneva), where he was Theory Division Leader for six years. His research interests

focus on the phenomenological aspects of elementary particle physics and its connections with astrophysics, cosmology, and quantum gravity. Much of his work relates directly to interpreting the results of searches for new particles. For example, he was the first to study how the Higgs boson could be produced and discovered. He is currently very active in efforts to understand the Higgs particle discovered recently at CERN and its implications for possible new physics such as dark matter and supersymmetry. He also studies possible future particle accelerators, such as the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) and future circular colliders. He is known for his relentless efforts to promote global collaboration in particle physics. John Ellis was awarded the Maxwell Medal (1982) and the Paul Dirac Prize (2005) by the Institute of Physics. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1985 and the Institute of Physics in 1991 and is an Honorary Fellow of King's College Cambridge and King's College London. 

 

During his visit to SAASST, Prof. John talked about his current and future projects. Among these projects, we can list:

  1. Live isotopes and nearby supernova and kilonova explosions: https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.05178
  2. Atom interferometers for detecting dark matter and gravitational waves: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.11755
  3. A possible space-borne atom interferometer experiment: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.00802
  4. A potential roadmap for cold atom projects, including also clocks and Earth Observation: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.07789
  5. A cold atom space experiment proposal to probe relativity, dark matter, and quantum mechanics.