Carlos Bertulani

Bertulani's thesis work on electromagnetic processes in relativistic heavy ion collisions is often taken as the standard reference for gamma-nucleus and gamma-gamma physics in collisions with heavy nuclei. Numerous processes related to lepton-pair (e.g., e⁺e⁻, or quark-antiquark) production, and to meson production in Peripheral nuclear collisions were first discussed and proposed in his thesis. The excitation of multiple giant resonances (i.e., a giant resonance on top of another) in nuclei was also a prediction of his thesis work. The excitation of multiple dipole resonances were verified in experiments at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI), Germany. The Coulomb dissociation method was another product of his earlier work as a doctoral student, in 1986. This method is now used in several nuclear accelerators worldwide to extract information on radiative capture processes in stars, which often cannot be measured directly.[3]

His APS Fellowship citation is:

For leading the development of theories for electromagnetic processes in heavy-ion collisions, including many pioneering and successful predictions for reactions involving nuclei far from the stability line.

Bertulani works on the physics of nuclei far from the stability line, e.g. halo nuclei; he has contributed to pioneering theoretical articles on the subject, as far back as 1986, on the nature of the ¹¹Li nucleus.[4] He has co-authored the first theoretical review of reactions with rare nuclear isotopes in 1993 and the first textbook in 2002.Physics of Radioactive Nuclear Beams. 2002. Bertulani has published textbooks on nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics, and edited books of international conferences that he organized. He is often involved in popularizing science, e.g. a feature article on Physics Today, March 1994.[5]

He was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in 2000-2001,[6] an APS Fellow in 2012 [7] and the Fulbright Scholarship in 2014.[8]

Bertulani has taught more than 75 courses at the undergraduate and graduate level at universities in Brazil, United States and Germany.[9] He has advised PhD and MSc students and mentored undergraduate students. Bertulani was chair of the PhD program at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro for 3 years. He participated and chaired committees on education and graduate student fellowships for the CNPq, Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, National Science Foundation, and chaired (2015-2016) of the Committee of Education for the American Physical Society.

Bertulani's youngest son Daniel was a member of the United States Air Force. He died in September 2012. Daniel's body is interred at the Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina.[10]

Bertulani's older son Henrique is an artist and graduated as an anthropologist from Michigan State University.[11] Henrique's paintings are present in several countries and were exhibited in galleries and art centers such as the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts, Dallas, Texas.

• Bertulani's web page at Texas A&M-Commerce
• Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M university-Commerce