Lattice 2012
The 30th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory
Cairns Convention Centre, Cairns, Australia
Sunday, June 24 — Friday, June 29

Ken Wilson Lattice Award

Background

The Ken Wilson Lattice Award was first introduced at Lattice 2011 and awarded a second time at Lattice 2012. Some members of the community of lattice field theory felt that some aspects of process and focus could be improved. The International Advisory Committee for Lattice 2012 appointed an ad hoc subcommittee to consider the future of the award. The compostion of the subcommittee and its report follow.

Subcommittee

Summary

We recommend that the award remain under the auspices of the IAC of the International Symposium for five years, after which an effort should be mounted to turn it into an APS award. Therefore, many of the recommended procedures follow APS customs. We favor changing the award to one recognizing the achievements of outstanding young physicists working on lattice field theory.

Award name

We suggest choosing a more formal name: the Kenneth G. Wilson Award for Excellence in Lattice Field Theory. Such a name conforms better with those awarded elsewhere in physics. We can still use "Ken Wilson Lattice Award" (KWLA) informally.

Award target

After much discussion, we favor an award targeted at a young physicist, who has received her/his Ph. D. in the past seven years. (For details, see below.) Such an award will publicize the vitality of the field and provide visibility to strong young physicists, which can be difficult for those in large collaborations. Prizes and awards for individuals are familiar in physics (cf.  EPS and APS). Experience with other awards suggests that such nominations are relatively straightforward to prepare and evaluate.

Alternatives

Some on the subcommittee favor the original notion of awarding the KWLA to a paper. In this case, we would favor alternating the paper and young-physicist versions of the award. Should a version acknowledging excellent papers be included, these papers should be three or more, but less than seven, years old.

We discussed an open award with no age restriction. We found several reasons to disfavor this option. With no age restriction, it seems inevitable that the award would become one for lifetime achievements of senior physicists. There are, however, many high-profile awards and prizes (Heineman, Sakurai, Rahman, Bethe from APS; the EPS HEP prize; the IOP's Dirac Medal & Prize; the ICTP's Dirac Medal; the DFG's Planck Medal; etc.), and it would benefit lattice field theory enormously if the very best from our field were nominated for such prizes (especially when successful!). Indeed, should the KWLA eventually become an APS award, then one should bear in mind that the APS rules forbid receipt of a second APS award, medal, or prize for substantially the same work.

Selection process

We strongly favor a process that separates nomination from selection. We recommend that the IAC appoint the selection committee over the coming five years (see below). The Chair of that committee would then issue a call for nominations via latticenews. The selection committee would then review the nominations and select one for the next award. Formally, the selection committee would recommend the recipient to the IAC. (The advise and consent steps are customary and permit the IAC to overrule the selection committee under exceptional circumstances.)

Nominations

We recommend following the procedure based on APS customs:

Nominations should consist of a nominating letter, a seconding letter, and up to two supporting letters; the nominee's CV; and a list of relevant publications (up to ten). The nominating letter should include a proposed citation (one sentence) justifying the award. All letters should explain and justify why the nominee should receive the award. Nominations will be considered for three years (or until receiving the award).

Self-nominations will not be considered. Otherwise, anyone may submit a nomination. Recipients are not eligible for a second award.

Selection committee

We recommend that we follow the algorithm in place for prizes & awards managed by the American Physical Society. These committees have 5 members. In the steady state, two members carry over from the previous year, with the Vice-Chair becoming Chair. A third member will be a/the recipient from two years prior. The final members are new to the selection committee, and one of these is appointed Vice-Chair.

The selection committees' membership should reflect the international nature of lattice field theory. It should always include members from the three main regions (Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific).

2013 and 2014 selection committees

We suggest that the selection committees start off as follows

Then the 2015 committee includes Chair C, person D, the 2013 winner, and two new members. The committee pipeline is then in steady state.

Award renumeration, endowment, auspices

We contacted Alan Chodos and Darlene Logan of APS. Chodos is a particle theorist working for APS programs and Logan is a fundraising expert. We attach three emails drawn from these conversations. [emails from Pavlos on Oct. 11, 19, 23]

Among other things, to become an APS award an endowment of $20,000 or more is necessary. The APS then pays out 5% in perpetuity. The APS would help with fundraising.

That said, we felt a proposal to institute this award would be stronger if we could raise a significant fraction of the initial endowment ahead of time. We contacted the Ohio State University and Cornell University, the institutions where Wilson was a professor, in the hope that they could make donations larger than most individuals. We found that he has not kept close contacts with either place, and that the global financial crisis has put constraints on what they are able to do. At best, we might be able to secure a donation from the physics departments, rather than a higher level (like chancellor, president, dean).

Taken with several other issues, the difficulty in raising a significant endowment now leads us to recommend that the KWLA remain under the auspices of the IAC of the International Symposium on Lattice FIeld Theory for the next five years. At that time, the IAC should revisit the procedures for endowing and transferring the KWLA to the APS. The IAC should re-examine the effectiveness of the award in promoting lattice field theory and (young) lattice field theorists. If (as we hope) the KWLA proves useful, the first step is to prepare and submit a proposal to APS and, once the proposal has been accepted, begin fundraising with the APS for endowment.

During the time that the IAC is in charge, we recommend a modest award of US$500 and waiver of the registration fee be taken from that year's conference budget (e.g., as speaker support). We recommend that the recipient receive a framed certificate signifying the award, with a citation explaining the work on which the award is based. We recommend that the recipient be invited for a short plenary talk on the material cited in the award. In conference planning, a suitable slot for award presentation and talk should be reserved.

Annual timetable

The award should be announced to the IAC and the recipient at least ninety (90) days before the lattice symposium of the year in question, to allow sufficient time for travel arrangements. This suggests a deadline for nominations in January (perhaps a bit later in 2013).

With a January 2013 deadline (say), nominees receiving their Ph. D. (or equivalent degree) after December 31, 2005, would be considered. An unsuccessful nomination will remain active and automatically will be reconsidered, even if the nominee was meanwhile in the eighth or ninth year post-doctorate.

(For the paper version, the relevant date would be the receipt date at a refereed journal. For 2013, the receipt date would have to be after December 31, 2005, and before January 1, 2010.)

Public announcement

This report provides background material that the subcommittee thinks will be useful is administering the award and understanding it more deeply. For publicity purposes, we suggest a shorter blurb for a web page and calls for nominations.

History

Link to the original Ken Wilson Lattice Award web page.