Nickolas Solomey

Nickolas Solomey (American, Swiss educated Physicist) born 23 July 1961, Pittsburgh Pa, USA. He received his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics in 1983 from Mount Union College, Alliance Ohio, Internship at High Energy Physics Division of Argonne National Lab 1983-1984, M.S. in Physics from Ohio State University in 1987 and a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva in Switzerland in 1992 under the direction of Prof. M. Martin (Univ. of Geneva) and Georges Charpak (CERN).https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275146346_Remembering_Georges_Charpak_Friend_Advisor_and_Great_Physicist
Post-doctoral studies under the direction of Prof. Roland Winston (Univ. of Chicago) 1993 to 2000 at the Univ. of Chicago, Illinois where he designed the Transition Radiation Detector particle identification system, aided with the high precession electromagnetic CsI calorimeter and the momentum measurement tracking system for the Fermilab KTeV experiment. He introduced the idea of using the KTeV experiment to study the Xi0 beta decay into Sigma+ electron and anti-neutrino where the 99% analyzing power of the Sigma+ which permitted a detailed study of the CKM matrix element VusN. Solomey et al., " A Proposal for Hyperon Physics at KTeV ", Univ. of Chicago note EFI 93-25, April 1993.N. Solomey, Recent Results in Weak Hyperon Decays, Chapter 44 of Kaon Physics, edited by J. Rosner and B. Winstein, University of Chicago Press 2001, where his result was the first to demonstrate in 1999 that the old value of Vus was off by 7 sigma, this brought the CKM matrix into agreement with the Unitarity theory of quark-quark interactions which was subsequently confirmed by the K+ decay analysis of J. Thompson in a BNL experiment and in 2007 confirmed by the K0 decays using the KTeV experiment. This result now is the accept standard that the CKM matrix of quark interaction strengths follows the principle of Unitarity, all due to the major change of the matrix element Vus which started with his Hyperon Beta Decay studies.
On the Physics Faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology 2000 to 2007, worked on creating the MIPP experiment particle identification detectors, tracking chambers and overall experiment design where he served as spokesman of the experiment from 2006 and onwards.https://news.fnal.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/current_experiment_spokespeople.pdf Served on the board of directors and as the head of Physics in arxiv.org the pre-print archive online server at Cornell University from 2006 to 2012.
Became Chairman of Physics and full Professor or Physics at Wichita State University in 2007 to 2012, where the merger of Mathematics and Physics to save administrative money resulted in the new Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics where he continues to serve as Professor of Physics. 
Prof. Nickolas Solomey has published over 200 refereed articles in Physics journals, many on Particle Detector Instrumentation with Nobel Prize winning scientists Georges Charpak, and Physics experimental results done both at CERN in Geneva Switzerland (WA93 and WA98 experiments) and Fermilab in Chicago (KTeV, MIPP, NOvA and DUNE experiments), leading the MIPP experiment as spokesman since 2006, and he continues to do research in elementary particle physics in neutrino experiments. 
He has published a science book for the public title "The Elusive Neutrino, a subatomic detective story" in 1997 by WH Freeman & company in the Scientific American Library series. During 1996 Nickolas Solomey was the Compton Lecturer of Physics at the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute. 
In addition to his work in particle physics Prof. Nickolas Solomey has ongoing research with NASA as a Phase-I 2018-2019, Phase-II 2019-2021 and awarded on 9 April 2021 a Phase-III study in the NASA Innovative Advanced Concept program office and is called a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept Fellow. His project about taking a neutrino detector in close orbit of the Sun to enhance the studies of neutrinos from its fusion core is a topic for a future NASA Spacecraft mission to the Sun which he leads.
Category:1961 births
Category:American physicists