Stern-Gerlach Medal 2011 for Günter Wolf

The German Physical Society (DPG) awarded the Stern-Gerlach-Medal 2011 to Prof. Dr Günter Wolf of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY. With the Society's most prestigious award, the DPG honours Günter Wolf's lifetime achievements in the field of 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 summarises its award decision. The medal will be presented during the DPG annual conference in the coming year. Since DESY's founding days, the 72-year old scientist has been working at the Hamburg research centre and significantly contributed to developing its scientific programme. His greatest research success is therefore immediately connected with DESY: In 1979, the TASSO collaboration, of which Wolf was temporarily spokesman, could proclaim the discovery of the gluon. TASSO was one of the four experiments conducted at the PETRA storage ring which for the first time experimentally observed the force carrier particle of one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Prior to this discovery, Günter Wolf already worked at the first accelerator at DESY, the synchrotron DESY. As of 1971, he was senior scientist at DESY and in this function participated in a leading role 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 3,600 metric tons heavy detector. Moreover, as a member of numerous scientific advisory boards, Günter Wolf has influenced the fate of particle physics worldwide.

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