Prize Recipient

Robert Brout
Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Citation:

"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"

Background:

Robert Brout obtained his undergraduate degree from New York University (1948) and doctorate from Columbia (1953). Research began in Rochester (1953), Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (1954-1956) then Cornell (1956-1961) as a Sloan Fellow (1959-61) and Guggenhein Fellow (1961-1962). He established in Europe (ULB) as a Solvay Fellow (1962-66) then Professor in the Service de Physique Theoretique co-directed with François Englert. He became active in three main fields: statistical mechanics, particle physics and cosmology.

The Causal Universe (1978) introduced the inflation  mechanism and received First Award of the International Gravity Contest by the Gravity Research Foundation (with F. Englert, E. Gunzig).

The European Physical Society High Energy and Particle Physics Prize (1997) was awarded with F. Englert and P.W. Higgs: for formulating for the first time a self-consistent theory of charged massive vector bosons, the foundation of electroweak theory of elementary particles.

The WOLF Prize in Physics (2004) was awarded (with F. Englert, P.W. Higgs) 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.

Brout received Emeritus ULB (1993) Docteur Honoris Causa de LUniversite de Mons-Hainaut (2004) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2005).

Selection Committee:

R. Sekhar Chivukula, Chair, S. Dawson, A. Smirnov, U. Baur, S.J. Brodsky