| Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1932 Madras, Madras Presidency, British India |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions | Imperial College London |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh, BS, MA, PhD |
| Known for | Quantum field theory, Broken symmetry, Higgs Boson, Higgs mechanism, and Cosmology |
| Notable awards |
Sakurai Prize |
Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble, FRS, (born 1932) is a British scientist and senior research investigator at The Blackett Laboratory, at Imperial College London, UK. His research interests are in quantum field theory, especially the interface between high-energy particle physics and cosmology. He has worked on mechanisms of symmetry breaking, phase transitions and the topological defects (monopoles, cosmic strings or domain walls) that can be formed. His seminal paper on cosmic strings introduced the phenomenon into modern cosmology. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh (MA 1955, BSc 1956, PhD 1958).
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Kibble is noted for his co-discovery of the Higgs–Kibble mechanism and Higgs boson with Gerald Guralnik and C. R. Hagen.[1][2][3] As part of Physical Review Letters 50th anniversary celebration, the journal recognized this discovery as one of the milestone papers in PRL history.[4] For this discovery Dr. Kibble was awarded The American Physical Society's 2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics.[5] Dr. Kibble is also a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Institute of Physics, and of Imperial College London, a member of the American Physical Society, the European Physical Society and the Academia Europaea, and a CBE. He has been awarded the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society and the Rutherford and Guthrie Medals of the Institute of Physics.
Kibble is one of the two co-chairs of an interdisciplinary research Programme funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF) on Cosmology in the Laboratory (COSLAB) which runs from 2001 to 2005. He was previously the coordinator of an ESF Network on Topological Defects in Particle Physics, Condensed Matter & Cosmology (TOPDEF). Kibble is the author, jointly with Frank Berkshire of the Imperial College Mathematics Department, of a textbook on classical mechanics. The fifth edition was published by Imperial College Press in Spring 2004. In 2008, Kibble was named an Outstanding Referee by the American Physical Society.[6]
Kibble is an avid cyclist. He was born in Madras, India and is the son of author Helen Bannerman and William Bannerman who was an officer in the Indian Medical Service.