Jack Smith

John Smith, an eminent theoretical particle physicist in the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University, passed away in Port Jefferson, New York, on 16 July 2017. John, who was known by everyone as Jack, was born on 4 May 1938 in Selkirk, Scotland. He earned a BS in 1960, an MS in 1961, and a PhD in 1963, all from the University of Edinburgh. During his graduate study, he spent a year at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and after receiving his doctorate in 1963, he held postdoctoral positions at Nordita as a NATO Fellow, and at the University of Adelaide as a Rothman Fellow. In 1967, he joined the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP) at SUNY Stony Brook as a research associate, and he subsequently joined the faculty of the department of physics (now the department of physics and astronomy). Jack was a key member of the faculty of this institute and department for over three decades. After 37 years on the faculty, Jack retired in 2007, but kept active in research as professor emeritus.

Jack made very important contributions spanning a considerable range of areas in particle physics. A constant theme in his work was to perform calculations yielding theoretical predictions that could be compared with data. Among his early works were papers on weak interactions, including one in 1970 with B. Martin and E. de Rafael on neutral $K$ decays into ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ and one in 1976 with C. Albright, C. Quigg, and R. Shrock calculating predictions of various electroweak gauge theories for neutral-current reactions and using these in conjunction with new data to constrain these theories. In a 1983 paper with W. van Neerven and J. Vermaseren, Jack demonstrated the power of the Jacobean peak in determining the mass and width of the $W$ boson. Their method is still in use today at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Over the ensuing years, Jack’s often-legendary calculations in perturbative quantum chromodynamics contributed mightily toward establishing the contemporary picture of fundamental interactions. These included several papers in 1989 and 1991-1993 with various coauthors including W. van Neerven and E. Laenen, presenting calculations of the production of heavy quark-antiquark pairs in $\overline{p}p$ and $pp$ collisions. These were valuable and timely for the analysis of Fermilab $\overline{p}p$ data by the CDF and D0 collaborations that led to their discovery of the top quark in 1995. In 2003 with W. van Neerven and V. Ravindran, Jack published a landmark calculation of higher-order QCD corrections to the cross-section for Higgs boson production in hadron-hadron collisions. This work was very valuable in the analysis of data from $pp$ collisions at the LHC by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations to discover the Higgs boson in 2012. It was quite fitting that Jack was invited to attend the 2013 ceremony at which his doctoral advisor, Peter Higgs, received the Nobel Prize (shared with François Englert).

Jack was renowned for his very modest and gentle personality. He gave quite generously of his time to colleagues, postdocs, and students. For instance, when an experimentalist would come to his office with a question about previous work, Jack would quickly locate the relevant outputs and patiently explain all details. He taught the full range of courses, from advanced quantum field theory to freshman physics. Students were very much aware of his expertise in research, his dedication to teaching and mentoring, and his kind nature. Jack served as the supervisor for many doctoral thesis students and as a mentor for a number of postdoctoral research associates at Stony Brook. Jack worked closely with these students and postdocs on many important papers. Indeed, three of us (J.V., R.G., and E.L.) were very fortunate to have been his PhD thesis students, and one of us (B.dW.) was equally fortunate to have worked with him starting as a postdoctoral fellow. Jack’s excellent pedagogical skills were evident in the textbook Field Theory and Particle Physics (1986) that he wrote with one of us (B.dW.). One of the last projects with which Jack was engaged was the completion of a new textbook on quantum field theory with two of us (B.dW. and E.L.).

Jack Smith’s research over many decades strongly influenced the development of particle physics worldwide. His accomplishments were recognized with a Humboldt Research Award and as a fellow of the American Physical Society. In the fall of 1993 he held the visiting Kramers Chair at Utrecht University. In 2005, he received the Stony Brook President’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. In October 2016, we were honored when he was able, if only briefly, to participate in a symposium here on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the ITP (renamed the C. N. Yang ITP in 2002), in whose development he played such an important role.

In April 2010, while on a trip to Europe to attend a conference, Jack developed a serious heart condition. With the loving support of his wife, Elsebeth, and daughter, Kristina, and through his own quiet strength, after a time Jack was able to return to his science, and to writing the field theory textbook with two of us mentioned above. Unfortunately, he suffered a final relapse in the early summer of this year.

We miss Jack Smith greatly. He will always be remembered by his former students, postdocs, colleagues, and coauthors, and, indeed, by all the people who knew him across the world.