Professor Bruce Harold John McKellarAC (born 1941) is an Australian theoretical particle physicist who is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP)[2] in the School of Physics at The University of Melbourne. The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) elected him as its President-Designate in 2012. In November 2014 McKellar became President of IUPAP, the first-ever Australian to take on this role.[3][4]
McKellar grew up in Bedgerabong in NSW, attending Bedgerabong Primary School[7] which was then a one teacher school. His father was the teacher. He then attended Forbes High School[8] before moving to Sydney at 16 to study a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney, which he completed with First Class Honours and the University Medal for Physics.
At Princeton McKellar began his work on weak interactions, calculating the parity violation in expected in nuclei. He also started his work on three and many body nuclear forces. It was characteristic of this work that he was applying the current algebra techniques of particle physics to obtain results about nuclei. During his time at the University of Melbourne, McKellar and his collaborators published his definitive study on three nucleon forces, famously known as the "Tucson-Melbourne" force.[11] His work on weak interactions led to calculation of the electric dipole moments expected for the nucleon and atoms in various models of these interactions. This work then evolved into studies of related effects in the B meson system.
McKellar and his students also did foundational work on the behaviour of neutrinos propagating through a dense background of neutrinos as one finds in the early universe. He is well known for the "He McKellar Wilkens" phase, a seminal quantum physics result predicted by He and McKellar,[12] and Wilkens (independently)[13] in 1993–94.
McKellar has made significant contribution to the development of the study of physics in Australia. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1987, was its Vice President for Physical Sciences from 2000–2004 and its Foreign Secretary from 2004–2006.[6] He was a founding member of the Australian Research Council, playing a key role in both its establishment and development.[6]
McKellar actively facilitates physics research, policy development and international collaboration globally, especially in the Asia-Pacific Region. He served on the board of trustees of the sia Pacific Centre for Theoretical Physics[14] and on the Council of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies[15] for many years.[6] He chaired the Regional Committee for Asia and the Pacific[16] of the International Council for Science (ICSU) (2009–2011), as well as the Australia and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS)[17] (1992–1998).[6]
Bruce McKellar married Loris Huckel in 1963. They have 2 children and 4 grandchildren and live in Melbourne, Australia.
Selected publications
McKELLAR, B.H.J. — The One Pion Exchange Contribution to the Weak Parity Violating Nucleon-Nucleon Potential. Physics Letters 26B: 107 – 108 (1967).
McKELLAR, B.H.J. and RAJARAMAN, R. — Three Body Forces in Nuclear Matter. Physical Review Letters 21: 450 – 453 (1968).
LASSEY, K.R. and McKELLAR, B.H.J. — Parity Non Conservation in (n,p) Capture at Thermal Energies: The influence of Strong and Weak Interactions. Nuclear Physics A 260: 413 – 445 (1976).
COON, S.A., SCADRON, M.D., McNAMEE, P.C., BARRETT, B.R., BLATT, D.W.E., and McKELLAR, B.H.J. — The Two Pion Exchange Three Nucleon Potential and Nuclear Matter. Nuclear Physics A 317: 242 — 287 (1979). This is the Tucson Melbourne Force paper.
McKELLAR, B.H.J. — The Influence of Mixing of Finite Mass Neutrinos on Beta Decay Spectra. Physics Letters 97B: 93 – 94 (1980).
McKELLAR, B.H.J., and GIBSON, B.F. — Nonmesonic decay of Heavy Λ-Hypernuclei. Physical Review C 30: 322 – 330 (1984)
R.D.C. MILLER, and McKELLAR, B.H.J. — Effective Field Theory and Weak Non Leptonic Interactions. Physics Reports 106: 169 — 296 (1984).
McKELLAR, B.H.J., CHOUDHURY, S.R., HE, X-G and PAKVASA, S. — The Neutron Electric Dipole Moment in the Standard KM Model. Physics Letters 197 B: 556 – 560 (1987).
HE, X.-G., McKELLAR, B.H.J. and PAKVASA, S. — The Neutron Electric Dipole Moment. International Journal of Modern Physics A 4: 5011 – 5046 (1989), erratum A6: 1063 (1991)
HE, XIAO-GANG, and McKELLAR, B.H.J. — Topological Phase Due to Electric Dipole Moment and Magnetic Monopole Interaction. Physical Review A 47: 3424 – 3245 (1993)
McKELLAR, BRUCE H.J. and THOMSON, M.J. — Oscillating Neutrinos in the Early Universe. Physical Review D 49: 2710 – 2728 (1994)
STEPHENSON, G. J. Jr, GOLDMAN T., and McKELLAR, B. H. J. — Neutrino Clouds. International Journal of Modern Physics A 13, 2765 – 2790 (1998)
HE, X.-G., McKELLAR, B.H.J. Hadron decay amplitudes from B ---> K π and B ---> π π decays, ArXiv:hep-ph/0410098; (2004).
References
^ ab"Companion of the Order of Australia". It's an Honour. 26 January 2014. "For eminent service to science, particularly the study of theoretical physics, as an academic, educator and researcher, through seminal contributions to scientific development organisations, and as an author and mentor."
