Prof. Franco Persico of the University of Palermo, Italy, serenely passed away in his sleep on 17 March 2017, aged 78 years.
Franco, tutored by Mariano Santangelo as well as by Ugo and Beatrice Palma, got his degree in 1960 at the University of Palermo with an experimental dissertation in Solid State Physics on a possible antiferromagnetic transition. He happened to discuss the results and interpretation of his thesis with Niels Bohr who was, at that time, visiting the Institute of Physics of Palermo, where some young experimental solid state physicists were aiming at bringing this research area to the already existing prewar level.
Almost immediately after, because of the need to build up a theoretical branch in the Structure of Matter at the Institute, he went to Nottingham, England, joining the research group of Prof. Stevens. He thus acquired competences and skills permitting him to found the theoretical scientific activity at the Institute of Physics of Palermo, maintaining a leadership role until his retirement. In the subsequent period, he built and consolidated lifelong friendships with some of the PhD or postdocs students who later became distinguished scientists appreciated in the worldwide community of physicists.
At the same time, he very actively continued to keep scientific contacts and collaboration at an international level. Franco Persico has been in the Editorial Board of Journal of Modern Optics as well as of Journal of Physics B. As such, all his colleagues in these two Boards keep memory of a very active scientist, keen to inspire successful editorial initiatives, a true gentleman with a personal elegant style difficult to forget. For many years, he spent each July at the Abdus Salam Center, where, as associate director, he put his skills and competences at disposal of young researches from extra European countries.
Franco’s scientific interests ranged from Solid State Physics and Matter Field Interaction to Quantum Optics. Franco dedicated the first few years after his scientific experiences abroad to the spin-phonon interaction, successively landing in fundamental problems regarding the interaction between e.m.field and atoms, contributing in an essential way to the development of the concept of dressed operators under laser fields. This seminal idea was applied to resonance fluorescence, while the opposite extreme case of vacuum e.m.field led him and his collaborators to the notion of dressed atom. The fruitful scientific collaboration with Prof. E.A. Power of the London University, born and developed over these years, deserves to be mentioned, since it led to establishing a deep personal friendship between them. The scientific experience accumulated over these years has been reported in the coauthored book: ‘Atom-Field interaction and Dressed Atoms’ in the series of Cambridge studies in Modern Optics, one of the editors being P.L. Knight (now Sir Peter), one of his young peers at the beginning of his British adventure. Franco Persico has been very active and productive during his scientific life, and is the author of more than one hundred papers. He left his academic position at the end of 2008.
Albeit his health worsened more and more over the last five years, Franco continued to be present in the department each day even if for few hours. The last paper of Franco has been published in 2013, well after his retirement, and is devoted to the subject of interaction of atoms with very strong fields.
The scientific and academic life of Franco, however, underwent a sharp transition in the year 1996, when his beloved wife Lotti suffered a very serious health problem, leaving her in need of much care and love but fortunately, in condition to have enjoyable interactions with her family. Franco thus decided without any hesitation, to dedicate much of his time free from his Institutional mandatory commitments, anyway admirably performed, to his family, day by day, successfully aiming at creating a normal relaxed atmosphere around Lotti. To this end, Franco, with the help of his dear daughter Angela, loved to organize receptions in his splendid villa of eighteenth century in Palermo, inviting Italian and foreign colleagues and friends, occasionally present for some scientific event that he could not devote as usual. In this way, he succeeded to give continuity to that unique hospitality style characterizing him and Lotti, that many of his students, some still at Palermo and other in Europe, have today, the privilege of witnessing. His kindness, his brilliant speech, his appreciated reliability, as well as his willingness to help generously scientific and academic growing of young postdoc students of his, combined to ensure him of many friends around the world. His legacy for all of us as well as for his beautiful family, may be synthetized in these words: coherence, responsibility, generosity and sincere feelings. We are proud of the privilege of having been among his friends.
Antonino Messina and Giuseppe Compagno
Dipartimento di Fisica e Chimica dell’Università di Palermo, Via Archirafi 36, I-90123 Palermo, Italy
As a theoretical physicist, Franco was renowned internationally for a wide range of contributions, extending from Solid State Physics to Quantum Optics. In this capacity, he was much sought after for refereeing and for his wise thoughts and advice on the publication of research. His expertise on guiding the Journal of Physics B from being purely about Atomic and Molecular Physics to the inclusion of Modern Optics when he acted as member of the Editorial Board was particularly valuable. He was similarly active in defining scientific policy at the Abdus Salam Institute in Trieste, of which he was for a time, Associate Director. He took charge of the Adriatico series of conferences which, thanks to his efforts, were wide-ranging in scope. It was typical of Franco, although he had often contributed to shaping the coverage of these meetings, that he never wanted his name included as organizer or editor, but rather wished to promote and advance the recognition of others.
Franco will be especially remembered for his human qualities. His concern for the welfare of others sometimes took on amusing forms. As Director of a research group and Head of Department at the Università degli Studi di Palermo, he considered that his responsibilities should include pretty much all aspects of the well-being of his staff. At one point, the electricity supply company ENEL had sent their engineers to fix some problem underground outside the laboratory, and they had departed leaving behind a gaping hole in the ground, where the cover of a manhole had apparently been lost. Franco became worried that a member of his staff might possibly trip over and fall into this hole. For a time, nobody could be found to fix this problem, so, having discovered that some university staff started working around 8am, he took it upon himself to leave his own home rather early in the morning, drive to the laboratory and carefully manoeuvre his car to position it just over this hole, so as to make it quite safe for other people to walk across the car park. In fact, the same concern then obliged him to stay late, so as to be the last person to leave. ‘Otherwise, he remarked, it would be my responsibility as Director if some unfortunate person were to fall into the hole.’
Franco had a ready wit and always some amusing tale to recount. One of his favourite themes was the Sicilian approach to traffic control. Once, as he was approaching a junction in Palermo, the lights suddenly turned to red and he stopped his car. Behind him, however, another driver hooted loudly, overtook his car at speed, then raced across the junction and disappeared into the distance. Franco gazed in admiration at this performance and exclaimed: ‘in Sicily, a red light is never a red light. It is merely a test of virility, and this fellow made me feel a real weakling!’.
Franco’s interests naturally extended to the history of physics and its many connections with the city of Palermo. In the relaxed context of the Abdus Salam laboratory in Trieste, he would speculate a good deal about the disappearance of Ettore Majorana, much to the interest of students and visitors alike. In Palermo, he would show his visitors the beautiful collection of early optical instrumentation accumulated in the times of Macaluso and Corbino. Although a theorist by training, he had a deep respect for experimental physics and a love for these sophisticated objects to which he felt aesthetically attracted.
In short, Franco, in addition to being a remarkably able and creative researcher, was a much loved personality and a truly distinguished Sicilian gentleman. As such, he will be very much regretted by his friends all over the world.
Quantum Optics and Laser Science Group, Physics Department, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BW, UK