Stephen Parke is a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 physicist. He is currently a Senior Scientist and Head of the Theoretical Physics Department at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, Illinois

Batavia, Illinois

Batavia was founded in 1833, and is the oldest city in Kane County, Illinois, with a small portion in DuPage County. During the Industrial Revolution, Batavia became known as ‘The Windmill City’ for being the largest windmill producer of the time...

).

Biography

Born in Gisborne

Gisborne, New Zealand

-Economy:The harbour was host to many ships in the past and had developed as a river port to provide a more secure location for shipping compared with the open roadstead of Poverty Bay which can be exposed to southerly swells. A meat works was sited beside the harbour and meat and wool was shipped...

, New Zealand, Parkes attended St Peter's College, Auckland

St Peter's College, Auckland

St Peter's College is a Catholic college for year 7 to 13 boys . The school, located in Auckland, is one of the largest Catholic schools in New Zealand and is an integrated school under an integration agreement entered into by the Catholic Bishop of Auckland and the Government of New Zealand in...

 and the University of Auckland

University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...

 in New Zealand. He was a graduate student of Sidney Coleman

Sidney Coleman

Sidney Richard Coleman was an American theoretical physicist who studied under Murray Gell-Mann.- Life and work :Sidney Coleman grew up on the Far North Side of Chicago...

 at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, obtaining a PhD in theoretical particle physics. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1980–1983) before moving to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Field of work

He is an originator of Parke-Taylor amplitudes

MHV Amplitudes

In theoretical particle physics, maximally helicity violating amplitudes are amplitudes with n external gauge bosons, where n-2 gauge bosons have a particular helicity and the other two have the opposite helicity. These amplitudes are called MHV amplitudes, because at tree level, they violate...

, which represent a new approach to computing scattering amplitudes in quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics

In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons . It is the study of the SU Yang–Mills theory of color-charged fermions...

 using symmetry methods such as supersymmetry

Supersymmetry

In particle physics, supersymmetry is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners...

. Parke is also an expert on neutrino

Neutrino

A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected...

 physics as well as the physics of the top quark

Top quark

The top quark, also known as the t quark or truth quark, is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Like all quarks, the top quark is an elementary fermion with spin-, and experiences all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and...

.

External links

• Parke's scientific publications are available on the SPIRES HEP Literature Databasehttp://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+A+PARKE%2C+S&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=.
• Stephen Parke at Fermilab Theoretical Physics Department