CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICISTS

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES PHYSICIENS ET PHYSICIENNES

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2007 Herzberg Medal is awarded to Dr. Barth Netterfield, University of Toronto for his work in experimental cosmology; in particular for the knowledge gleaned about the early universe from the cosmic microwave background.

Bart Netterfield, an experimental Cosmologist at the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) Cosmology and Gravity program, is internationally renowned as one of the best cosmic microwave background experimentalists of his generation. He managed the integration, flights, and data analysis for the BOOMERANG CMB balloon-borne telescope. This bolometer-based experiment has been the most successful long duration balloon experiment to date, generating much media as well as scientific excitement. It determined the age, geometry, and content of the Universe by making high resolution maps of the first three acoustic peaks in the primordial plasma of the Universe when it was 380,000 years old. The third flight of BOOMERANG included polarization sensitivity, measuring the very small polarization fluctuations at high resolution that were predicted to be there in inflation-based cosmological models. The techniques demonstrated in this flight were adapted by the Planck CMB satellite, due to be launched in 2008 for which he is a core team member, having developed Quick Look and Trend analysis software. He is the Canadian PI of the BLAST balloon borne telescope, the most sensitive sub-mm telescope ever built, which, in December of 2006, made a completely successful 12 day flight in Antarctica and the data will unlock many mysteries involving the history and processes of star formation in galaxy formation. Netterfield has formed a very research group that is involved in many other CMB experiments as well, including electronics and software for the Chile-based very high resolution ACT experiment and the EBEX polarization balloon experiment. His group is playing a seminal role in the design and construction of Spider, a balloon experiment designed to detect the incredibly tiny polarization signature of gravitational waves generated during the Inflation epoch of the extremely early Universe.

The CAP Herzberg Medal was first introduced in 1970 and is awarded annually. Dr. Netterfield will receive the 2007 Prize during the CAP's awards banquet to be held in Saskatoon on June 19th, 2007.

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics.

For more information, please contact:

Canadian Association of Physicists
Tel: (613) 562-5614
Fax: (613) 562-5615
E-mail: cap@physics.uottawa.ca