Sheldon Stone Explained

Sheldon Stone
Birth Date:14 February 1946
Birth Place:Brooklyn, New York
Fields:Elementary particle physics
High energy physics
Workplaces:Syracuse University
CERN
Fermilab
Cornell University
Vanderbilt University
Alma Mater:Brooklyn College
University of Rochester
Thesis Title:Strange particle and π− meson production in 12.7 GeV/c Kp interactions.
Thesis Url:https://rochester.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ROCH_INST/1vg5sr1/alma998367943405216
Thesis Year:1972
Doctoral Advisor:Thomas Ferbel
Doctoral Students:Daniela Bortoletto
Awards:Panofsky Prize (2019)
Spouse:Marina Artuso[1]

Sheldon Leslie Stone (February 14, 1946 October 6, 2021) was a distinguished professor of physics at Syracuse University.[2] He is best known for his work in experimental elementary particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb), and B decays. He made significant contributions in the areas of data analysis, LHCb detector design and construction, and phenomenology.[3]

Biography

Stone earned a B.S. in physics from the Brooklyn College in 1967 and completed his PhD in 1972 at the University of Rochester under the guidance of Thomas Ferbel.[4] [5]

Stone began his career as an assistant professor of physics in 1973 at Vanderbilt University, where he stayed until 1979. He moved to Cornell's Laboratory for Nuclear Studies as a senior research associate. He moved to Syracuse University in 1991 and led the Experimental High Energy Physics Group at Syracuse from 1993 until his death in 2021. Since 2011, he served as the Distinguished Professor of Physics at Syracuse.

He served as the CLEO physics analysis coordinator in 1988 and made significant contributions to data analysis and detector construction (such as the CLEO particle detectors at the electron storage ring at Cornell University.[6] He served as co-spokesperson from 2007-2008.[7]

He also was co-spokesperson of the BTeV experiment at the Fermilab from 1997 until it was terminated in 2005. He was a member of the Fermilab PAC, board of overseers, and board of directors.[8] [9]

In 2005, Stone became a LHCb collaborator and served as the Upgrade coordinator from 2008-2011, during which time the project was organized and the letter of intent submitted.[10] From 2011 to 2012, he was on leave from Syracuse as a scientific associate at CERN.[11] He died on October 6, 2021, at the age of 75.

Research

Stone had a leading role in many important discoveries such as the observation of the B+, B0, and Ds mesons. In 2000, he pushed to convert CLEO into a charm factory, which subsequently led to the measurement of the charm-decay constants fD+ and fDs. These measurements demonstrated the applicability of lattice-QCD calculations of hadronic effects in the weak decays of hadrons with a heavy quark with precision of a few-percent, thereby enabling similar calculations to be used with confidence to interpret key measurements by other flavour-physics experiments worldwide. At CLEO, Stone led the design and construction of new high-performance Th-doped near-4π CsI calorimeter detectors. This was the first application of a precision electromagnetic calorimeter to a general-purpose magnetic spectrometer. He also worked on design and construction of a Ring-imaging Cherenkov detector providing four-σ K-π separation over the full accessible momentum range.[12]

In 2015, Stone was involved in the discovery of the pentaquark at CERN. Five-quark resonances, called pentaquarks, were predicted at the dawn of the quark model but were only found after 50 years when Stone and a small team of colleagues uncovered their existence in the LHCb dataset.[13] [14] [15]

In 2021, Stone was part of a LHCb team that unexpectedly discovered the exotic narrow double-charm tetraquark (T, cc), a type of long-lived tetraquark, in experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider.[16] [17] [18]

Awards

In 2019, Stone received the Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics of the APS for "transformative contributions to flavor physics and hadron spectroscopy, in particular through intellectual leadership on detector construction and analysis on the CLEO and Large HadronCollider beauty (LHCb) experiments, and for the long-standing, deeply influential advocacy for flavor physics at hadron colliders".[7] [19] [20]

He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1993 for "outstanding contributions to the study of b-quark decays".[21]

Works

Notes and References

  1. News: Celebration of Life in Honor of Professor Sheldon Stone to Be Held Oct. 7 . 4 October 2022 . Syracuse University News . 3 October 2022.
  2. News: A&S Mourns the Loss of Sheldon Stone, Distinguished Professor of Physics . 21 October 2021 . . 20 October 2021 . en-us.
  3. Web site: Physics Tree - Sheldon Leslie Stone . academictree.org . . 9 October 2021.
  4. Web site: Graduate Alumni 1970-1979 : Department of Physics and Astronomy . www.pas.rochester.edu . . 9 October 2021.
  5. Candidates for the DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Degree . . 9 October 2021 . 46 . June 3, 1973.
  6. Book: Berkelman . Karl . A Personal History of CESR and CLEO . January 2004 . . 978-981-238-697-7 . 60 . 9 October 2021 . en . 10. The First Upgrade, CLEO-1.5, 1984–1989 . 10.1142/5426 . Although there are many members whose contributions have been outstanding, Sheldon Stone and Ed Thorndike are especially noteworthy. Sheldon started out as a junior faculty member at Vanderbilt when CLEO was first organized and joined the Cornell group as a Research Associate in the early data taking period. After a while as a Cornell Adjunct Professor he became a Full Professor with the Syracuse group. Sheldon always has strong opinions on what CLEO should be doing. Although his aggressive advocacy sometimes annoys his colleagues, he is almost always right..
  7. News: CLEO contributor wins W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics . 9 October 2021 . www.classe.cornell.edu . 1 November 2018.
  8. Ruderman . Gary . Syracuse University adds a history of technology and leadership to search for CP violation . 25 . 13 . 9 October 2021 . . August 9, 2002.
  9. Stone . Sheldon . THE Goals and Techniques of BTeV and LHC-B . 30 September 1997 . hep-ph/9709500.
  10. Web site: Physics at LHCb . Colloquium Series at SLAC . 9 October 2021 . 23 March 2021.
  11. News: Syracuse University physicists first to observe rare particles produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN . 9 October 2021 . Syracuse University News . 28 March 2011.
  12. News: Sheldon Stone 1946-2021 . 21 October 2021 . . 20 October 2021.
  13. Chalmers . Matthew . Forsaken pentaquark particle spotted at CERN . . 1 July 2015 . 523 . 7560 . 267–268 . en . 10.1038/nature.2015.17968. 26178944 . 2015Natur.523R.267C . 4458591 . free .
  14. Temming . Maria . Particular Joy . 9 October 2021 . Scientific American . 15 September 2015 . 313 . 4 . 28 . 10.1038/scientificamerican1015-28. 2015SciAm.313d..28T .
  15. News: Lincoln . Don . What the Heck is a Pentaquark? . 9 October 2021 . . July 28, 2015.
  16. News: Wood . Charlie . 'Impossible' Particle Discovery Adds Key Piece to the Strong Force Puzzle . 21 October 2021 . . 27 September 2021 . en.
  17. Aaij . R. . Observation of an exotic narrow doubly charmed tetraquark . Nature Physics . 2022 . 18 . 7 . 751–754 . 10.1038/s41567-022-01614-y . 2109.01038. 2022NatPh..18..751L . 237385202 .
  18. Web site: What to Know About the Newly Discovered Tetraquark at the Large Hadron Collider. 2021-09-27. Gizmodo. 2 August 2021 . en-us.
  19. Web site: 2019 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics Recipient . 9 October 2021 . American Physical Society. en.
  20. APS announces 2019 prize and award winners . . December 2018 . 58 . 10 . 35 . 9 October 2021.
  21. Web site: APS Fellow Archive . www.aps.org . . 9 October 2021 . en.