Ugo Fano

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Ugo Fano
Chicago, Illinois
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Turin
Known forLu–Fano plot
Feshbach–Fano partitioning
Fano resonance
Fano factor
Fano effect
Fano–Lichten mechanism
Beutler-Fano profile
Fano noise
AwardsEnrico Fermi Award (1995)
William F. Meggers Award (1989)
University of Leipzig
Doctoral advisorEnrico Persico
Other academic advisorsEnrico Fermi
Werner Heisenberg
Doctoral studentsChris H. Greene
Notes
His father was Gino Fano, he is the brother of Robert Fano, and the cousin of Giulio Racah.

Ugo Fano (July 28, 1912 – February 13, 2001) was an Italian American physicist, notable for contributions to theoretical physics.[2]

Biography

Ugo Fano was born into a wealthy

Jewish family in Turin, Italy. His father was Gino Fano, a professor of mathematics.[3]

University studies

Fano earned his doctorate in mathematics at the University of Turin in 1934, under Enrico Persico, with a thesis entitled Sul Calcolo dei Termini Spettrali e in Particolare dei Potenziali di Ionizzazione Nella Meccanica Quantistica (On the Quantum Mechanical Calculation Spectral Terms and their Extension to Ionization). As part of his PhD examination he also made two oral presentations entitled: Sulle Funzioni di Due o Più Variabili Complesse (On the functions of two or more complex variables) and Le Onde Elettromagnetiche di Maggi: Le Connessioni Asimmetriche Nella Geometria Non Riemanniana (Maggi[4] electromagnetic waves: asymmetric connections in non-Riemannian geometry).

European years

Fano worked with Enrico Fermi in Rome, where he was a senior member of 'Via Panisperna boys'. It was during this period that with the urging of Fermi, Fano developed his seminal theory of resonant configuration interaction (Fano resonance profile), which led to two papers, in 1935 and 1961.[5][6] The latter is one of the most cited articles published in the Physical Review.[citation needed]

Fano spent 1936–37 with Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig.[3]

Career in the United States

In 1939, he married Camilla Lattes,

Feynman's Lost Lecture: Motion of Planets Around the Sun
. An expanded version of this book was subsequently published as Basic Physics of Atoms and Molecules (1972).

Later in 1939, he immigrated to the United States due to increasing

neutrons
.

After serving a stint at the

National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology), where he was hired as the first theoretical physicist on the NBS staff. He served there until 1966, when he joined the faculty of physics at the University of Chicago. There he trained, until the early 1990s, about thirty graduate students and postdoctoral research associates,[3] many of whom now occupy leading positions in theoretical atomic and molecular physics
in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Scientific legacy

Fano had a major impact in sustained work over six decades on

radiological physics. Most areas of current research in these subjects reflect his fundamental contributions. Such phenomena as the Fano resonance profile, the Fano factor
, the Fano effect, the Lu-Fano plot, and the Fano–Lichten mechanism bear his name. The Fano theorem used in radiation dosimetry is also a result of his work.

Family

His brother,

MIT. Fano's cousin, Giulio Racah, made great contributions to the quantum theory of angular momentum
(well known as Racah algebra), and wrote a concise monograph with Fano on the subject (Irreducible Tensorial Sets, 1959).

Honors

Fano was a member of the

Royal Society of London
.

In 1989 he was awarded the

Optical Society
.

He was awarded the

U.S. Department of Energy in 1995.[8]
His most-cited work is the 1961 paper mentioned above.

The July–to September 2000 issue of Physics Essays was dedicated to Ugo Fano, including a posthumous paper from Fano.[9][10][11]

References

  1. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2012.0030
    .
  2. S2CID 26743870
    .
  3. ^ a b c d Inokuti, Mitio (April 2001). "In Memoriam: Ugo Fano". RrsNews. 34 (1).
  4. ^ Gian Antonio Maggi (1856–1937) was an italian mathematical physicist
  5. S2CID 119640917. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on October 6, 2006. (English translation)
  6. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.124.1866
    .
  7. S2CID 53700352
    .
  8. doi:10.1063/1.1420522
    .
  9. doi:10.1063/1.1420522
    .
  10. ^ James Glanz (February 15, 2001). "Ugo Fano Is Dead at 88; Physicist Linked to Fermi". The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
  11. S2CID 26743870
    .

External links
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