SAS awarded the honorary title DrSc. h. c. to Professor George R. Pickett

On Wednesday, November 30, 2022, prof. George R. Pickett of Lancaster University received the honorary scientific title of Doctor of Physical Sciences, DrSc. h. c., from the hands of the president of the SAS Pavol Šajgalík in the Scientific Park of the Comenius University in Bratislava. The Scientific Council of the SAS conferred the title to prof. G. Pickett especially for his very significant help in building the Center of Low Temperature Physics of the Institute of Experimental Physics SAS in Košice and achieving European level and European integration of this center. The title was given to him at the ceremonial General Assembly of the Learned Society of Slovakia, of which he has been an honorary member since 2018.

Prof. George R. Pickett, FRS is a world-renowned scientist in the field of very low temperature physics and an outstanding scientific personality. The entire scientific life of prof. George Pickett is associated with the physics of very low temperatures, the development of experimental techniques for reaching ultralow temperatures, the development of methods for measuring these temperatures and the design of measurement techniques for studying the physical properties of condensed matter at these such low temperatures.

Prof. George Pickett, FRS was born in 1939 in Great Britain. He completed his undergraduate studies at Oxford University in Great Britain, where in 1965 he defended his dissertation Thesis on properties of dilute magnetic alloys at low T. He then worked for five years as a “research associate” at the Department of Technical Physics, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland, where worked in the group of prof. Olli Lounasmao, one of the founders of European low-temperature physics. Since 1970, the scientific career of prof. George Pickett, FRS, is closely associated with Lancaster University, which he joined as a “senior visiting fellow”. At the University of Lancaster, he went through positions from assistant to professor. In 1988, he was appointed to the post of professor of low-temperature physics. He works in this position, but as a “distinguished” professor, up until today.

Research topics of prof. George Pickett can be summarized in the following areas: quantum liquids and special superfluid 3He, nuclear magnetism, physics of reaching ultralow temperatures, physics of interfaces between quantum liquids, and analogies of superfluid 3He physics with cosmology.

For the achieved results, Prof. George Pickett became member of the Royal Society in 1997, and a year later, together with prof. Anthony Guénault was awarded the prestigious international Simon Prize for the development of ultralow temperature physics.

Up to date, prof. George Pickett has published more than 230 publications, including seven articles in Nature, three articles in Nature Physics, 35 articles in Physical Review Letters and other articles in journals registered in WoS and Scopus databases.

The full text of the eulogy is attached.

Collaboration with Institute of Experimental Physics SAS

Collaboration between prof. G. Pickett and the Centre of Low Temperature Physics (CFNT) of the IEP SAS in Košice started in 1988. Thanks to this, Košice gained confidence in organizing the global conference on ultra-low temperature physics ULT 96 in 1996. Subsequently between the years 1999-2007 IEP SAS and the Institute of Physics of Lancaster University signed agreements on mutual scientific and technical cooperation valid for three years with the possibility of extension.

The “Cosmology in Laboratory (COSLAB)” project also made a significant contribution to the visibility of CFNT IEP SAS. Another joint English-Slovak scientific activity coordinated by prof. G. Pickett, and which was financed by the British Council, was an INYS meeting organized in October 2005 in Stará Lesna.

In terms of scientific output, Centre of Low Temperature Physics in Košice published with prof. By George Pickett and the workers of the Lancaster laboratory a total number of more than 20 scientific papers.

After Slovak Republic became member of EU, prof. Mikko Paalanen, then director of Olli Lounasma’s laboratory, invited the Košice low-temperature laboratory to become part of the EU ULTI IV program thanks to initiative of prof. George Pickett , and appointed Dr. Petr Skyba as a member of the selection committee of this project. This opened up the European integration ambitions of the Košice low-temperature laboratory.

Talk Breaking the Low Temperature Barrier into the Nanokelvin Regime

During the lecture given at the ceremony, prof. George Pickett explained how he and his team are trying to break into the nanokelvin regime and push the existing temperature limit down. He described the techniques used to achieve these very low temperatures. At the same time, he discussed why scientists want to get into this temperature regime and what they expect to find there. He admitted that the answers to the second part may not be exactly what one might expect.

The entire ceremony, as well as the lecture by prof. George Pickett can be seen in the attached video.

Eulogy prof. George Pickett

Original article HERE.