Stephen Parke (born 1950) is a New Zealand physicist. He is a distinguished scientist and former head of the Theoretical Physics Department at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, Illinois).[1]
Stephen Parke | |
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Born | 1950 |
Nationality | New Zealand United Kingdom United States |
Alma mater | Edmund Campion College, Gisborne St Peter's College, Auckland University of Auckland Harvard University |
Known for | Parke–Taylor amplitudes, analytic understanding of MSW effect and top quark spin correlations |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Theoretical physics |
Institutions | Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Fermilab |
Doctoral advisor | Sidney Coleman |
Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, Parke attended Edmund Campion College, Gisborne and St Peter's College, Auckland and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He was a graduate student of Sidney Coleman at Harvard University, obtaining a PhD in theoretical particle physics in 1980. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1980–1983) before moving to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.[2]
He is an originator of Parke–Taylor amplitudes, which he developed with his colleague, Tomasz Taylor.[3] Parke-Taylor amplitudes represent a new approach to computing scattering amplitudes in quantum chromodynamics using symmetry methods such as supersymmetry. Parke is also an expert on neutrino physics[4] as well as the physics of the top quark.[citation needed]