Table Of ContentSymmetry
and
Fundamental Physics:
Tom Kibble 80
at
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Symmetry
and
Fundamental Physics:
Tom Kibble 80
at
Edited by
Jerome Gauntlett
Imperial College London, UK
World Scientific
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SYMMETRY AND FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS: TOM KIBBLE AT 80
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ISBN 978-981-4583-01-5
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Printed in Singapore
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Photos xii
Tom Kibble and the Early Universe as the Ultimate High
Energy Experiment 1
Neil Turok
Universality of Phase Transition Dynamics: Topological Defects
from Symmetry Breaking 31
Adolfo del Campo and Wojciech H. Zurek
The Quest for the Higgs Boson at the LHC 89
Tejinder S. Virdee
Tom Kibble: Breaking Ground and Breaking Symmetries 125
Steven Weinberg
Tom Kibble at 80: After Dinner Speech 133
Frank Close
Publication List — Tom W. B. Kibble 137
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Preface
TomKibbleisaninspirationaltheoreticalphysicistwhohasmadeprofound
contributions to our understanding of the physical world. To celebrate his
80th birthday, a one-day symposium was held on March 13, 2013 at the
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London.
Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble was born in Madras, India on
the 23rd of December 1932. His father, a statistician, was Professor of
Mathematics at Madras Christian College. Tom was educated at Doveton-
Corrie School, Madras to the age of ten before moving to Edinburgh,
where he completed his secondary education at Melville College. His
undergraduate and postgraduate education was carried out at the
University of Edinburgh from 1951–1958. His PhD thesis on topics in
quantum field theory was supervised by John Polkinghorne.
During the final year of his PhD, Tom married Anne Allan and they
were happily married until Anne’s death in April 2005. They have three
children, Helen (born in 1960), Alison (born in 1963) and Robert (born in
1969), and seven grandchildren.
After completing his PhD, Tom spenta yearas a CommonwealthFund
Fellow at Caltech. In 1959 Tom returned to the UK taking up a postdoc
position with the Theoretical Physics Group at Imperial College, which
had recently been founded by Abdus Salam in 1956. In 1961 Tom was
appointedtoaLectureshipandhethenremainedatImperialforthewhole
of his career. A photograph of the Group in 1964 appears on page xii.
During his career Tom sustained a major leadership role at Imperial. He
was Head of the Theoretical Physics Group for 18 years (from 1971–1983
and 1992–1998) and he was the Head of the Department of Physics from
1983-1991.
Tom’s contributions to theoretical physics have received wide recogn-
ition. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980. He was awarded
the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1981 and the Rutherford Medal
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of the Institute of Physics in 1984 (both shared with Higgs). He was made
a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1998 and was
made a Fellow of Imperial College in 2009. In 2012 he won the American
Physical Society’s Sakurai Prize (shared with Brout, Englert, Guralnik,
HagenandHiggs).In2012hewasalsoawardedaRoyalMedaloftheRoyal
Society.In2013hewasmadeanHonoraryFellowoftheInstituteofPhysics
and was also awardedan ICTP Dirac Medal.
OutsideofacademiaTomhasbeenanactivecampaigneragainstnuclear
arms. He was Chair of the British Society for Social Responsibility in
Science from 1974–1977and was Chair of Scientists Against Nuclear Arms
(SANA) from 1985–1991.
The symposium profiled various aspects of Tom’s long scientific career.
The tenor of the meeting was set in the first talk given by Neil Turok,
director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, who described
Tomas“ourguruandexample”.Hegaveamodernoverviewofcosmological
theories,includingadiscussionofTom’spioneeringworkonhowtopological
defects might have formed in the early universe during symmetry-breaking
phase transitions. Wojciech Zurek of Los Alamos National Laboratory
continued with this theme, surveying analogous processes within the
context of condensed matter systems and explaining the Kibble–Zurek
scaling phenomenon. The day’s events were concluded by Jim Virdee of
Imperial College, who summarized the epic and successful quest of finding
the Higgs boson at the Large HadronCollider at CERN. At the end of the
talk, there was a standing ovation for Tom that lasted several minutes.
In the evening, Steven Weinberg gave a keynote presentation to a
capacityaudienceof700people.Hetalkederuditelyonsymmetrybreaking
and its role in elementary particle physics. He discussed the role played by
the three 1964 papers by Fran¸cois Englert and Robert Brout, by Peter
Higgs, and by Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen and Tom himself. He also
discussed the significant impact of Tom’s sole-authored 1967 paper that,
among other things, explains the mechanism whereby the W and Z boson
get mass while the photon remains massless. Michael Duff of Imperial
College gave the vote of thanks.
At the banquet dinner, the UK Minister of Science, David Willetts,
stated the importance of fundamental research, praising Tom’s contri-
butions. Ed Copeland, of the University of Nottingham and Tom’s
most prolific collaborator, profiled Tom’s scientific leadership, vision and
generosity. Tom’s son Robert recollected that while his father was doing
his amazing work, family life continued as normal — although holiday
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destinations did strangely seem to coincide with venues for physics
conferences. Frank Close of Oxford University concluded the banquet
speeches by summarizing the significance of Tom’s contributions to the
creation of the Standard Model.
Two themes that resonated throughout the day were Tom’s extra-
ordinary scientific achievements coupled with his humility.
Jerome Gauntlett,
Head of Theoretical Physics
Imperial College, London
October 2013
