PRESENT POSITION

Head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interaction in the Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date and Place of Birth: March 8, 1955 Jordanów, Poland
Citizenship: Polish

WORK ADDRESS

The Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland
Phone: + 48 12 6628 141
email: adam.maj@ifj.edu.pl
www.ifj.edu.pl, www.adam-maj.pl

ORCID: 0000-0002-2873-7077
ResearcherID: B-4607-2010
Scopus Author ID: 7005691286

DEGREES

• State nominated Professor, Warsaw, July 2006;
• Habilitation: Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow, April 2001;
• Ph. D.: Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków, December 1988;
• Master of Science: Jagiellonian University, Kraków, March 1979;
• High School (Gymnasium), Myślenice, 1974.

KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGES

• Close to Fluent: English, German;
• Passive: Russian;
• Mother tongue: Polish.

POSITIONS, FUNCTIONS

• Assistant at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow 1979-1988;
• Guest scientist in Hahn-Meitner Institute, West Berlin, Germany 1982-1984;
• Lecturer (adjunct) at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow 1988-2001;
• Post-doc position in the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark 1989-1990;
• Visiting Professor in the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark 1996;
• Associated professor the Inst. of Nuclear Physics, Krakow 2001–2006;
• Head of the Department of the Structure of Nucleus at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2003 –2009;
• Head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interactions at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2009-2013;
• Technical Director of the Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2010–2011;
• Scientific Director of the Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2011–2016;
• Deputy Head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interactions at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2016-2020;
• Head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interactions at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków 2020 – present.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Nuclear structure physics based on gamma and conversion electron spectroscopy and nuclear reactions
• Nuclear super- and hyper-deformation, exotic nuclear shapes, Jacobi shape transitions
• Study of the nuclear properties using Giant and Pygmy Resonances
• Radioactive beams
• Large arrays for gamma detection
• Popularization of nuclear physics

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

• Member of the NUSTAR Council in GSI, Darmstadt, Germany
• Co-chairman of the Scientific Council of the Heavy Ion Laboratory, Warsaw, Poland
• PARIS project leader
• Member of NUPECC
• Member of the EURISOL User Group
• Chairman of the General Assembly of the ENSAR2 H2020 project
• Work package coordinator in the UE EURO-LABS project
• Chairman of the GANIL User Executive Committee (2017-2020)
• Member of the PAC in IJCLab Orsay (2015-2024)
• Member of the Nuclear Physics Program Advisory Committee in Dubna (2017-2022)
• Member of the Academia Europea, London, 2017-present
• Member of the Governing Board of the Polish Physical Society (2022-2025)
• Member of the Editorial Board of Physical Review C (2023-2025)
• Member of the Committee of Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (2024-2027)
• Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee European Physical Journal (2024-2027)

PUBLICATIONS

Articles in Refereed Journals: c.a. 350, citations ca. 5500, h-index=38

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BIOGRAFIC NOTE OF ADAM MAJ

Adam Maj was born in 1955 in Sidzina village south of Poland. In 1974 he accomplished the high school (liceum) in Myślenice. He completed the study of physics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 1979, specializing in nuclear physics. He successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis “In-beam spectroscopy of 198Po and 200Po nuclei” at Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics in 1988, having prof. Stanislaw Ogaza as the supervisor. He obtained his habilitation in 2001 upon the dissertation “Properties of hot and fast rotating nuclei studied with giant dipole resonance in exclusive experiments”. The title of state nominated Professor he obtained from the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński in 2006.

Since 1979 Adam Maj has been employed in the Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Krakow. At the beginning, mainly during his stay in Hahn-Meitner Institute in Berlin (1982-1984), where he worked with Karl-Hugo Maier, he dealt with experimental studies of the structure of atomic nuclei using methods of gamma, conversion electrons and alpha particles spectroscopy, as well as using measurements of magnetic moments of isomeric states. From 1989, he started close collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, as the post-doc and later visiting professor, working within HECTOR collaboration together with prof. Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje from Copenhagen and prof. Angela Bracco from Milano. In that period, Adam Maj extended his scientific interests on studies of hot rotating nuclei using the gamma decay of the giant dipole resonance and implemented such studies in Krakow. In these investigations, he confirmed existence of the Jacobi shape transition in atomic nuclei, as well as a presence of another exotic nuclear shapes. Since 2005 he has been in addition engaged in the RISING, PRESPEC and NUSTAR projects at GSI Darmstadt aiming to study properties of exotic nuclei produced in the relativistic fragmentation of heavy ions. He is also deeply involved in preparation of new scientific projects for the radioactive beams from the soon available new accelerator complexes SPIRAL2 in Caen (France) and FAIR Darmstadt (Germany). He initiated and now coordinates a new European project aiming at developing novel detector - PARIS - for high-energy gamma-ray studies.

In the IFJ PAN he held the post of the head of Department of the Structure of Atomic Nucleus (2003-2009), the head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interactions (2009-2013), and the Scientific&Technical Director of IFJ PAN (2010- 2013). Since 2013 till 2016 Professor Adam Maj was the Scientific Director of IFJ PAN. Presently he is the head of the Nuclear Physics Division in the IFJ PAN. He owns several memberships: the IFJ PAN Scientific Committee, the Scientific Committee of the Heavy Ion Laboratory of University of Warsaw (Chairman), the chair of the GANIL User Executive Committee (Caen, France) 2018-2020, the ESS In-Kind Review Committee (Lund, Sweden) 2012-2022, the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) since 2011, Chair of the Nuclear Physics Section of the Polish Physical Society 2017-2021, member of the Governing Board of the Polish Physical Society.

Adam Maj is also involved in the popularization of nuclear physics, among others he organized and directed a multimedia spectacle “At the intersection of two infinities” showing in educational and artistic form the history of the Universe and creation of elements, with the music of polish iconic figure in the rock music, Jozef Skrzek. This event was performed in front of close to 1000-person audience during the open day of the Congress of Polish Physicists in 2019 in Krakow, and later distributed via YouTube, earning a great interest.

He is a co-author of about 350 scientific papers (h-factor=38) and supervisor of four successfully promoted Ph.D. students.

In 2024 he received the Prize of the Ministry of Science and Higher Educations for his lifetime achievements.

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ACCOMPLISHED PHD THESIS UNDER SUPERVISION OF ADAM MAJ

• Maria Kmiecik (2001) “Properties of atomic nuclei and mechanisms of nuclear reactions studied by means of giant dipole resonance”
• Monika Brekiesz (2006) “Gamma decay of the GDR and charged particles emission from hot, fast rotating 46Ti and 132Ce nuclei”
• Szymon Myalski (2011) „Studies of mechanisms of isomeric states excitations in fragmentation reactions at relativistic energies”
• Michal Ciemała (2013) ““Study of the dynamics of the compound nucleus decay for extreme values of angular momentum and temperature"

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ADAM MAJ’S MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS

(obtained within international teamwork)

Scientific highlights

• Pioneering measurement of the giromagnetic factors (g-factor) for excited states and, above all, for the ground state in the nucleus 217Ac using detection of emitted alpha particles in a magnetic field (https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(85)90201-5)
• Comprehensive investigation, performed for the first time, of the excited states of the 198Po and 200Po nuclei using gamma-gamma coincidence, gamma-electron conversion, measurement of lifetimes and g factors (https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(90)90430-T)
• Observation, for the first time, of excitation and pre-fission gamma decay of the GDR in the superheavy nucleus 272Hs, and investigation of the effective shapes of such a nucleus (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.1035)
• World's first observation of the so-called 'wobbling' phenomenon in atomic nuclei with triaxial deformation, involving changes in the direction of the nuclei' rotation axis (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.5866)
• Confirmation of the observation of the Jacobi transition phenomenon in light atomic nuclei and observation, for the first time, of the effect of the Coriolis effect on the excitation of the Giant Dipole Resonance in fast-rotating hot atomic nuclei (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2003.11.043)
• Theoretical prediction, together with Prof. Dudek's group from Strasbourg (France), for the first time, of the possibility of the existence of Poincare-type shape changes in rapidly rotating atomic nuclei (https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218301310014947)
• Observation, for the first time, of excitations and gamma decays of so-called pygmy resonances in 68Ni nuclei in experiments using relativistic radioactive beams at GSI (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.092502)
• Discovery of triaxial deformation in light atomic nuclei in Coulomb excitation experiments using the novel AGATA detector (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.092502)
• Pioneering gamma decay measurement of the Giant Quadrupole Resonance in 208Pb at the Bronowice Cyclotron Centre, IFJ PAN. (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.105.014310)

Major achievements in apparatus construction and data analysis techniques

• Construction and use in experiments of a novel conversion electron detector based on a superconducting solenoid (https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-9002(84)90206-7)
• Construction and application of the HECTOR system, based on large-volume BaF2 scintillators and the associated HELENA gamma-ray multiplicity filter (https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(94)90347-6) for the measurement of gamma decay GDR
• Propose, coordinate the construction, together with colalborators from France (Marek Lewitowicz), Italy, India and other coutries and first use of the novel PARIS gamma calorimeter, based on phoswich detectors consisting of LaBr or CeBr scintillators, integrated with NaI scintillators, with common readout by photomultipliers connected to digital electronics (http://rifj.ifj.edu.pl/handle/item/333)
• Proposing and participating in the construction of measurement systems at the Bronowice Cyclotron Centre, IFJ PAN (https://doi.org/10.5506/APhysPolB.48.415)
• Proposing a differential method for the analysis of gamma spectra from GDR decay (https://doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(92)91392-M)

Major achievements in the organisation of scientific research in Europe and Poland

• Establishment of a new research group of collective nuclear excitations at IFJ PAN (1991).
• Head of the Division of Nuclear Physics and Strong Interactions (2006-2012 and 2020-now).
• Scientific Director, IFJ PAN (2012-2016).
• Polish representative in the NUPECC (Nuclear Physics Coordination Committee) (2011-now).
• Coordinator of the PARIS calorimeter project (2007-now). Co-editor of the PARIS White Book, ISBN 978-83-63542-22-1.
• Initiator and main editor of the study "White Book on the Future of Low-energy Nuclear Physics in Poland and the Development of the National Research Infrastructure", ISBN 978-83-959188-0-3.
• Proposing the inclusion of a position for nuclear physics research in the planned ELAMAT - IFMIF-DONES implementation in Rzeszów. Chairman of the editorial committee of the paper "White Book on the Complementary Scientific Programme at IFMIF-DONES", ISBN 978-83-63542-68-9. Although the project to build the IFMIF-DONES infrastructure in Poland did not come to fruition, many of the proposals proposed were implemented in the IFMIF-DONES infrastructure under construction in Spain. As a result, Prof Maj became the coordinator of the Work Package 'Other Complementary Experiments and Upgradeability' in the European DONES PreP project (2019-2021).
• Important participation in several EU projects: leading the Instrumentation work package in the SPIRAL2PP project (2007-2012, leading the task in the IDEAAL project (2017-2021), chairing the Governing Board of the ENSAR2 project (2016-2021), coordinating the work package "Research Infrastructures for Nuclear Physics" and participating in the Steering Committee of the EURO-LABS project (2022-2026).
• Activity in the Polish Physical Society: Chairman of the Nuclear Physics Section (2017-2021), Vice-Chairman of the Cracow Branch of the Polish Physical Society (2018-now), Member of the Main Board (2022-now).
• Vice-Chairman (2014-2021) and Chairman (2022-now) of the Council of the Environmental Heavy Ion Laboratory of the University of Warsaw.
• Member of the NUSTAR Council at GSI/FAIR, Darmstadt (Germany) (2012-now).
• Chair of the COPIN Consortium of collaborating institutions in France (2011-now).
• Member of the PAC programme committee for experiments on the ALTO accelerator at IJCLab Orsay, France (2016-now).
• Chair of the GUEC user committee at GANIL, Caen, France (2017-2020).
• Member of the advisory committee for nuclear physics at ZIBJ Dubna (2017 - 2022, resignation after 24 February 2022).
• Member of Academia Europea, London (2017 - now).
• Member of the Editorial Board of Physical Review C (2023-2025).
• Organization of the nuclear physics session “Landcape of Polish nuclear Physics” at the 48th Congress of Polish Physicists in 2023 in Gdansk.

Achievements in popularisation of science

• Chairman of the organising committee of Małopolska Night of Scientists, organised for the first time at IFJ PAN in 2009. Since then, IFJ PAN has become a permanent element of Małopolska Night of Scientists.
• Originator and director of the multimedia show "At the interface of two infinities", combining films popularising the phenomena of nuclear physics, cosmology and astronomy (presented by Dr Jerzy Grębosz) with music by Józef Skrzek (a legendary Polish musician) and texts by Krzysztof Niewrzęda (a Polish poet living in Berlin). The show was presented at the 2019 Physicists' Convention in Krakow for a large audience (about 1,000 spectators) and disseminated via the resulting video on the YouTube platform (https://youtu.be/OZIIVQgFhgs). Adam Maj and his team (Jerzy Grębosz and Józef Skrzek) were awarded the Ernst Medal for Popularisation of Science in 2021 by the Polish Physical Society.