Giovanni Jona-Lasinio


Giovanni Jona-Lasinio, sometimes called Gianni Jona, is an Italian theoretical physicist, best known for his works on quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. He pioneered research concerning spontaneous symmetry breaking, and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model is named after him. When Yoichiro Nambu received the Nobel Prize, Jona-Lasinio gave the Nobel Lecture in his place, as a recognition from Nambu for their joint work. At present, he holds a faculty position in the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome, and is a full member of the Accademia dei Lincei.

Life

Giovanni Jona-Lasinio was born in Florence, Jewish on his father's side. From 1970 to 1974 he taught electrodynamics at University of Padua. Since 1974 he has been full professor at Sapienza University of Rome, where he teaches mathematical methods of physics. He spent several years abroad, doing his research also at University of Chicago, CERN, MIT, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Université Pierre et Marie Curie. In 2004, the Journal of Statistical Physics, a scientific magazine about statistical mechanics, dedicated a special issue in honor of Giovanni Jona-Lasinio.

Nobel Prize controversy

Half of the 2008 Nobel Prize for physics went to Yoichiro Nambu for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. The fundamental step in this field is the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model, developed together with Jona-Lasinio, who was left out of the prize. In recognition to his colleague's work, Nambu asked Jona-Lasinio to hold the Nobel Lecture at the Stockholm University in his place.
The other half of the 2008 prize for physics was awarded to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa for their 1972 work on quark mixing. The resulting quark mixing matrix is known as CKM matrix, after Nicola Cabibbo, Kobayashi, and Maskawa. Like Jona-Lasinio, Cabibbo arguably merited a share of the award.
As the Nobel Prize is awarded each year to at most three people for no more than two different research works, in 2008 the committee was forced to skip one member each from both the CKM and the NJL workgroups.

Awards