Biography:Richard Casten

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Short description: American physicist
Richard Casten
Born (1941-11-01) November 1, 1941 (age 82)
New York City , U.S.
Alma materCollege of the Holy Cross (BS)
Yale University (MS, PhD)
AwardsHumboldt Prize (1983)
Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics (2011)
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsNiels Bohr Institute
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Yale University
ThesisCollective Nuclear Structure Studies in the Osmium Nuclei (1967)
Doctoral advisorD. Allan Bromley
Jack Greenberg

Richard Francis Xavier Casten (born November 1, 1941) is an American nuclear physicist. He serves as the D. Allan Bromley Professor Emeritus of Physics at Yale University, where he was also the director of the Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory from 1995 to 2008.[1] He is known for his research in nuclear structure and radioactive nuclear beams.[2] He is also known for Casten's triangle, which was introduced in 1981.[3]

Early life and education

Casten was born on November 1, 1941, in New York City .[4] His father was a Jewish surgeon from New York and his mother was a Catholic homemaker. Casten was raised in Manhattan and attended the Quaker Friends Seminary, where he took chemistry classes and resolved to become a physicist.[5]

Wishing to get out of the city, Casten enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross as a physics major and became a member of its honors program. The college's focus on a liberal arts education allowed him to take courses in history and philosophy, which he later recalled as having "an effect on my whole research career".[5] He graduated from Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), magna cum laude, in 1963.[6][7]

After graduation, Casten attended Yale University for graduate school with the intention to study physics under D. Allan Bromley. Under Bromley, he studied Coulomb excitation in osmium isotopes.[5] He obtained his Master of Science (M.S.) from Yale in 1964 and his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from the university in 1967.[4] Casten had begun his dissertation in September 1963 and completed his thesis defense in August of 1967; his doctoral committee included Bromley, Jack Greenberg, and Charles K. Bockelman.[5][8] His dissertation, titled "Collective nuclear structure studies in the osmium nuclei", was the first thesis to be based upon research done with Yale's MP-1 tandem accelerator.[9][10][11]

Career

From 1967 to 1969, Casten was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen.[6] He was drawn to the institute due to his research in collective effects, and the two leading scientists of the field were Aage Bohr and Ben Mottelson, who were based there; Bohr and Mottelson would later win the Nobel Prize in Physics. In addition, the Niels Bohr Institute also based Russian physicist Vilen Strutinsky. Casten learned Danish while in Denmark and recalled his research at the institute as being on "single particle, individual nucleon behavior".[5]

Casten went to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for additional postdoctoral research from 1969 to 1971. Thereafter, he became a physicist at the Nuclear Structure Group of the Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1971 to 1981, then a senior scientist from 1981 to 1997.[4] Casten was the group leader of the Nuclear Structure Group from 1981 to 1996.[6] In 1995, he assumed a position as the director of the A. W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (WNSL) at Yale University and was made a professor of physics that same year.[4][5] He stepped down as director of the laboratory in 2008.[9] In the summer of 2011, WNSL's accelerator was shut down.[12]

Casten was a full professor at Yale until 2008, when he received the appointment as the university's D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics. He served in that capacity until 2015, when he retired with emeritus status.[4][13] As a professor, Casten taught graduate courses in introductory and advanced nuclear physics.[14] He has been an associate editor for Physical Review C for experimental nuclear structure. He held visiting positions at the Institut Laue–Langevin, at the University of Cologne's Institute for Nuclear Physics, at the CERN/ISOLDE facility,[9] and at Stony Brook University.[2] He chaired the United States Department of Energy's Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) from 2003 to 2005, and was also chair of the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) in 2008 and of the FRIB Science Advisory Committee from 2009 to 2012.[9]

Awards and honors

Casten was elected in 1981 to be a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).[15] In 1987, he was elected to be a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[16] In 1983, he received a Humboldt Award for Senior U.S. Scientists. He was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Bucharest and the University of Surrey.[9]

In 2009, Casten received the Mentoring Award from the Nuclear Physics Section of the APS for "his outstanding commitment to mentoring women in nuclear science and preparing them for leadership roles".[17] In 2011, he received the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics "for providing critical insight into the evolution of nuclear structure with varying proton and neutron numbers and the discovery of a variety of dynamic symmetries in nuclei".[9][18][19]

Selected publications

Articles

Books

References

  1. ↑ Laurans, Penelope (2015). "Richard F. Casten". Yale University. https://fas.yale.edu/book/faculty-retirement-tributes-2015/richard-f-casten. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Richard Casten is named D. Allan Bromley Professor". Yale Bulletin & Calendar (Yale University) 34 (21). March 3, 2006. http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v34.n21/story8.html. 
  3. ↑ Iachello, F; Arima, A. (2006-11-02). The Interacting Boson Model. pp. 81–84. ISBN 978-0-521-30282-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=PXv_SRqDG_IC&pg=PA81. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "R. Casten, Biography | Physics History Network". https://history.aip.org/phn/11502018.html. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Zierler, David (June 25, 2020). "Interview of Richard Casten". American Institute of Physics. https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/46761. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Gibson, Benjamin F. (November 2005). "Candidate Biographies | Nominations for Vice-Chair". Division of Nuclear Physics (The American Physical Society) (145): pp. 5. https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/APS/9487474c-539c-4417-81e5-51aeb25847a8/UploadedImages/Documents/145.pdf. 
  7. ↑ "Degrees in Course | Bachelor of Science Honors Magna Cum Laude". Catalogue (Worcester, Massachusetts: College of the Holy Cross) 60: pp. 127. https://crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=course_catalog. 
  8. ↑ Gai, Moshe; Hirshfield, Jay L.; Sandweiss, Jack (October 2005). "Obituary. Jack Sam Greenberg". Physics Today 58 (10): 99–100. doi:10.1063/1.2138436. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 "2011 Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics Recipient – Richard F. Casten, Yale University". 2011. https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Casten&first_nm=Richard&year=2011. 
  10. ↑ Qi, Andrew; Cao, Carrie (March 29, 2015). "Rebirth of Wright". Yale University. https://www.yalescientific.org/2015/03/rebirth-of-wright/. 
  11. ↑ Wegner, H. E.; Thieberger, P. (1977). "North-American MP tandem accelerators". Revue de Physique Appliquée 12 (10): 1291–1301. doi:10.1051/rphysap:0197700120100129100. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46155731. 
  12. ↑ "The New Yale Wright Laboratory". Physic News, Yale University: pp. 11–13. Fall 2015. https://physics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/YalePhysics2015.pdf. 
  13. ↑ Tipton, Paul (Fall 2015). "Rick Casten retires, July 2015". Physics News (Yale University): p. 20. https://physics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/YalePhysics2015.pdf. 
  14. ↑ "Faculty News for 2000-2001 | Richard Casten". Yale Department of Physics Newsletter (Yale University): pp. 7. Summer 2001. https://physics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/2001-Summer_YalePhysics.pdf. 
  15. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=&year=1981&unit_id=Brookhaven+National+Laboratory.  (search on year=1981 and institution=Brookhaven National Laboratory)
  16. ↑ "Historic Fellows Listing". https://www.aaas.org/fellows/historic.  (search on last name "Casten")
  17. ↑ "Richard Casten (D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics) was recently presented with the 2009 Mentoring Award by the Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society". Yale University. November 2, 2009. https://physics.yale.edu/news/richard-casten-d-allan-bromley-professor-physics-was-recently-presented-2009-mentoring-award. 
  18. ↑ Llorens, Cecile Rivera (Summer 2011). "Rick Casten '63 Earns Top Physics Prize". Holy Cross Magazine (College of the Holy Cross) 45 (3). https://magazine.holycross.edu/issue_45_3/45_3_alumni_spotlights/45_3_Casten. Retrieved November 27, 2023. 
  19. ↑ "Casten wins Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics" (in en). Yale University. November 11, 2010. https://news.yale.edu/2010/11/11/casten-wins-bonner-prize-nuclear-physics. 
  20. ↑ Moszkowski, Steven (1991). "Review of Nuclear Structure from a Simple Perspective by Richard F. Casten". Physics Today 44 (11): 91–92. doi:10.1063/1.2810324. Bibcode: 1991PhT....44k..91C. 
  21. ↑ Casten, R. F. (January 1993). Algebraic approaches to nuclear structure: Interacting boson and fermion models (Abstract). https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6546239-algebraic-approaches-nuclear-structure-interacting-boson-fermion-models. 

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