Samoil Bilenky 1928-2020

Samoil Bilenky, from JINR, Dubna, Russia, passed away on 5 November 2020.

Samoil Bilenky was a founder of modern neutrino physics and had a leading role in the evolution of neutrino physics to its present mature state.

In a fruitful collaboration and co-authorship with Bruno Pontecorvo, which started in the early 1970ies, he developed the theory of neutrino oscillations in vacuum and laid the foundations of the phenomenological theory of neutrino mixing, on which every theoretical model of neutrino mass generation (including GUTs) is based.

In the early days of his scientific career Samoil Bilenky left his mark in the field of polarised scattering phenomena obtaining important results on the relation between the particles intrinsic parities and the polarisation effects in scattering processes.

Samoil Bilenky was an excellent teacher, mentor and inspiration for many young researchers in the field of elementary particle and neutrino physics and had collaborators and friends in many countries.

His human warmth and benevolent personality embodied the best humanistic and cultural traditions of the Russian Intelligentsia to which Samoil Bilenky belonged.


Samoil Bilenky with Bruno Pontecorvo


Obituary in CERN Courier Volume 61, Number 3, May/June 2021