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Draft:Howard Wieman

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  • Comment: Possibly notable, but the sources aren't enough to satisfy WP:GNG, and I don't think those awards establish notability either. Happy to be proven wrong, if someone can point out exactly what makes this person notable and what evidence supports such an assertion. DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: Subject would be notable based on WP:NPROF, but it would be a WP:BLP violation to publish this without sources supporting the content. The majority of the content would need to be removed; or, reliable sources would need to be added to support what is written. CNMall41 (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Howard Henry Wieman
Born1942 (age 82–83)
Oregon, USA
NationalityAmerican
Alma materOregon State University
University of Washington
Known forSTAR detector, Time Projection Chamber, Active-pixel sensor
Family
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Nuclear Physics
InstitutionsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI)
University of Colorado
Doctoral advisorIsaac Halpern

Howard Henry Wieman is an experimental nuclear physicist specializing in instrumentation and detectors for high-energy nuclear physics.

In 2015, Wieman (LBNL) and Miklos Gyulassy (Columbia) were awarded the APS Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics [1]. The citation reads: [4] 

“For developing foundational experimental and theoretical tools to enable and guide generations of experiments in relativistic heavy ion physics. The combination of experiment and theory led to the initial discoveries at RHIC, ongoing precision studies of the properties of hot nuclear matter, and to exploration of the nuclear matter phase diagram.”

Wieman is best known for leading the team that designed the STAR [5] Time Projection Chamber (TPC) which was used to discover a new state of matter, the strongly interacting Quark-gluon plasma. The discovery was made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The STAR TPC was built in Berkeley [6], installed at RHIC, and tested throughout 1998 and 1999. The first Gold-Gold collisions at RHIC were recorded with the TPC on June 12, 2000 [7] [8] [9]. A brief seven months later, in January 2001, the STAR collaboration published the first measurement of elliptic flow in ultra-relativistic Gold-Gold collisions which indicated that the collision zone at RHIC energies is behaving hydrodynamically and with significant thermalization. This was a key step in making the discovery of a strongly interacting Quark Gluon Plasma, and a perfect liquid [10] [11] [12] [13], which was announced in 2005 by all 4 RHIC detector collaborations. [14] [15] [16] [17]

At the time of installation, The STAR TPC was the biggest in the world (50,000 liters)[18] and the photo [19] of the first Gold-Gold collision in the TPC is an iconic figure that appears frequently in textbooks [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]. The STAR TPC is still in operation today after having taken significant and ground breaking data every year since 2000 [26].

Wieman received his bachelor's degree from Oregon State University in 1966 and his doctorate in 1975 from the University of Washington. His doctoral advisor was Isaac Halpern. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado and then spent the bulk of his career as a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [3] [27]. At times, he also worked for and in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI, Darmstadt). He retired from LBNL in 2011 but remains active in research.

At LBNL he was responsible for the design and installation of the Low Energy Beam Line at the Bevalac heavy ion accelerator and for the development of two generations of large Time Projection Chambers (TPCs). His first TPC was the EOS Time Projection Chamber at the Bevalac, [28] which he co-led with Hans-Georg Ritter. Wieman then led the design and construction of a larger TPC for the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He finished his career working with thin, high resolution, active pixel sensors. In particular, the Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT) pixel detector for the STAR experiment was a ground-breaking device [29]. It became operational in 2014 and was used to observe D mesons produced in heavy ion collisions. [30]

Wieman is a Fellow of the American Physical Society [2], was awarded the LBNL J.M. Nitschke Technical Excellence Award in 1999 [3], and received the APS Tom W. Bonner Prize for Nuclear Physics [4] in 2015.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics". APS Bonner Prize.
  2. ^ a b "Fellows of the American Physical Society (2001)". APS Fellows.
  3. ^ a b c "J.M. Nitschke Technical Excellence Award". Berkeley Lab Currents. 19 November 1999. Retrieved 2023-01-26.
  4. ^ a b "APS Bonner Prize". Bonner Prize Citations.
  5. ^ "The STAR Detector". 25 Years Since First Collisons at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  6. ^ "A STAR is Born". Berkeley Lab Currents. 14 July 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  7. ^ "BNL Bulletin" (PDF). RHIC Begins World's Highest Energy Heavy-Ion Collsions. 16 June 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  8. ^ "Berkeley Lab Science Beat". Quest for the Quark Gluon Plasma. 19 June 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  9. ^ "CERN Courier". RHIC starts producing data. 21 September 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  10. ^ "APS News". RHIC Detects Liquid State of Quark-Gluon Matter. April 2005. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  11. ^ Jacak, Barbara; Steinberg, Peter (1 May 2010). "Creating the Perfect Liquid in Heavy Ion Collisions". Physics Today. Retrieved 30 October 2025.
  12. ^ "BNL Newsroom". RHIC Scientists Serve Up 'Perfect' Liquid. 5 May 2005. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  13. ^ "CERN Courier". RHIC groups serve up ‘perfect’ liquid. 18 April 2005. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  14. ^ Arsene, I.; et al. (8 August 2005). "Quark–gluon plasma and color glass condensate at RHIC? The perspective from the BRAHMS experiment". Nuclear Physics A. 757 (1–2): 1–27. arXiv:nucl-ex/0410020. Bibcode:2005NuPhA.757....1A. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2005.02.130.
  15. ^ Back, B.B.; et al. (8 August 2005). "The PHOBOS perspective on discoveries at RHIC". Nuclear Physics A. 757 (1–2): 28–101. arXiv:nucl-ex/0410022. Bibcode:2005NuPhA.757...28B. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2005.03.084.
  16. ^ Adams, J.; et al. (8 August 2005). "Experimental and theoretical challenges in the search for the quark–gluon plasma: The STAR Collaboration's critical assessment of the evidence from RHIC collisions". Nuclear Physics A. 757 (1–2): 102–183. arXiv:nucl-ex/0501009. Bibcode:2005NuPhA.757..102A. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2005.03.085.
  17. ^ Adcox, K.; et al. (8 August 2005). "Formation of dense partonic matter in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions at RHIC: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX Collaboration". Nuclear Physics A. 757 (1–2): 184–287. arXiv:nucl-ex/0410003. Bibcode:2005NuPhA.757..184A. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2005.03.086.
  18. ^ Anderson, M.; et al. (1 March 2003). "The STAR time projection chamber: a unique tool for studying high multiplicity events at RHIC". NIM A. 499 (2–3): 659–678. arXiv:nucl-ex/0301015. Bibcode:2003NIMPA.499..659A. doi:10.1016/S0168-9002(02)01964-2.
  19. ^ "STAR Detector First Event". 12 June 2000. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  20. ^ Dzierba, Alex (March 2009). "QCD with a Light Touch". American Scientist. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  21. ^ Wilczek, Frank (2008). The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465003211. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  22. ^ Hossenfelder, Sabine (3 December 2006). "Book Cover Physics". Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  23. ^ Shuryak, Edward (7 October 2004). The QCD Vacuum, Hadrons and Superdense Matter. World Scientific. ISBN 978-9812385741.
  24. ^ Seife, Charles (14 July 2003). Alpha & Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe. Penguin Putnam. ISBN 978-0670031795.
  25. ^ Hwa, Rudolph; Wang, Xin-Nian (27 January 2004). Quark Gluon Plasma 3. World Scientific. ISBN 978-9812380777.
  26. ^ "BNL Newsroom". 25 Years Since First Collisons at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. 12 June 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.
  27. ^ "Heavy Flavor Tracker for STAR". LBL Newsroom. 18 February 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2025.
  28. ^ "The time projection chamber turns 25". 27 January 2004.
  29. ^ "Heavy Flavor Tracker for STAR". BNL Newsroom. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2025.
  30. ^ Roberts Jr, Glenn (30 May 2017). "Heavy Particles Get Caught Up in the Flow". Retrieved 26 January 2023.



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