URL: https://www.desy.de/information__services/press/press_releases/2010/pr_181110/index_eng.html
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Stern-Gerlach Medal 2011 for Günter Wolf
Professor Günter Wolf
Professor Dr. Günter Wolf from the DESY research centre receives the Stern-Gerlach Medal 2011 from the German Physical Society (DPG). With the highest award presented by the DPG for achievements in experimental physics, the society honours the lifework of Günter Wolf in elementary particle physics. “With his important work and discoveries, he has significantly influenced both, the development of this field and the establishment of the elementary particles standard model,” the DPG outlines its award decision. The medal will be presented in the coming year at the annual conference of the DPG.
Already since the beginning of DESY, Professor Günter Wolf (72) was a scientist at the Hamburg based research centre and had great influence on its scientific programme. His greatest research success is therefore closely connected with the accelerator centre: in 1979, the TASSO collaboration was able to announce the discovery of the gluon. TASSO was one of the four experiments at the PETRA storage ring that for the first time experimentally observed the force carrier particle of one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Wolf was temporarily spokesman of the TASSO collaboration.
Prior to this discovery, Günter Wolf already worked at the first accelerator at DESY, the synchrotron DESY. After an intermediate stay at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC in California (USA), he became senior scientist at DESY in 1971 and participated in the construction and the experimental programme of large particle detectors at the storage rings DORIS, PETRA and HERA. In 1985, he was elected spokesman of the ZEUS Collaboration. ZEUS was one of two sophisticated particle detectors in which the electrons and protons of the HERA storage ring were brought to collision, and Günter Wolf made major contributions to lead to success the design and construction of the 3600 tons heavy detector. Moreover, as a member of numerous scientific advisory boards, Günter Wolf has influenced the fate of particle physics worldwide.
