A CERN physicist receives the Gian Carlo Wick Medal

The 2007 Gian Carlo Wick Gold Medal was presented to the CERN theoretical physicist André Martin in Erice (Italy) on 20 August. The prize is awarded each year by the WFS (World Federation of Scientists), whose president is Professor Antonino Zichichi, to a theoretical physicist for his outstanding contributions to particle physics. The selection committee is composed of eminent physicists and is chaired by the Nobel Physics Prize Laureate, T.D. Lee.

André Martin was awarded the Medal in recognition of his work on the total cross-section for interactions between two particles and his contributions to the understanding of heavy quark-antiquark (or quarkonium) systems.

In 1965, André Martin established a theoretical basis for the so-called Froissart bound, which places a limit on the total cross-section for the interaction between two particles. He went on to carry out extensive work on quarkonium systems (particles comprising a heavy quark and a heavy antiquark of the strange, charm or beauty type), establishing new properties for the Schrödinger equation on these systems. The model he developed for quarkonia was subsequently extended to baryons.

André Martin joined CERN in 1959 as a Fellow in the Theory Division and became a permanent CERN theorist in 1964. He retired in 1994 but continues his work on theoretical physics at CERN.