Tom Weiler

Tom Weiler played a leading role in theoretical high-energy physics over the past 50 years as a phenomenologist with a particular interest in neutrinos and cosmic rays. He died on 17 December 2023, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Tom was born on 5 May 1949 in St. Louis. He received his BS from Stanford University in 1971 and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1976, under the supervision of Vernon Barger. Following postdoctoral appointments at the University of Liverpool, Northeastern University, and the University of California, San Diego, he joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 1984. Tom remained at Vanderbilt for the rest of his career.

Following his PhD, Tom concentrated on QCD physics. In 1979, he introduced the “gauge boson–gauge boson” fusion mechanism in collaboration with J. Leveille of Imperial College, London. The following year, he used the reaction p + e → J/ψ to infer the first-ever gluon momentum distribution inside the proton.

In the 1980s, Tom became an early contributor to the field of astroparticle physics. In 1982, he produced what is perhaps his best-known work, in which he described the annihilation of extreme-energy neutrinos with cosmic background neutrinos to produce a Z boson. Known as the Weiler resonance, the process has the potential to directly detect the cosmological relic neutrino background. Another paper, in collaboration with V. Barger, S. Pakvasa, and K. Whisnant, presented a new, “bimaximal” mixing model for neutrinos; this mixing matrix is still used today as a starting point for neutrino models.

Tom’s later work spanned a wide variety of topics, including closed timelike curves in higher dimensions, theoretical inferences from the IceCube neutrino observatory, magnetic monopoles, axions, and Large Hadron Collider phenomenology.

Tom was a frequent visitor at multiple institutions, including stints in Australia, Hawaii, and Germany, as well as 18 summers at the Aspen Center for Physics. His many awards include Distinguished Alumni Fellow of the University of Wisconsin Department of Physics, Simons Fellow in theoretical physics, and the Alexander Von Humboldt Senior Research Career Award. Tom had a quirky sense of humor and never took himself too seriously. He was a delightful colleague and a pleasure to collaborate with, and he will be deeply missed.

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