The APS 2024 Robert R. Wilson Prize awarded to Prof. Kaoru Yokoya, Diamond Fellow of KEK

The 2024 Robert R. Wilson Prize for achievement in the physics of Particle Accelerators by American Physical Society (APS) has been announced to be awarded to Kaoru Yokoya, Diamond Fellow and Professor Emeritus of KEK Accelerator Laboratory. APS recognizes his outstanding achievement: “For seminal contributions to the theory and control of beam polarization in electron storage rings, beam-beam interactions in linear colliders, crab-crossing and coherent beam-beam interactions in circular colliders, and bunched beam instabilities”.

He started his career at High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in 1979. He joined the design group of the electron-positron collider TRISTAN, which was realized in early 1980s. In this period, he studied beam instability issues for the TRISTAN accelerator. He also studied beam polarization in electron storage rings in initial motivation with the TRISTAN accelerator including electron-proton collision, where beam polarization was important consideration. In 1984, his studies focused on linear colliders, and at first started on the normal-conducting X-band linear collider, JLC. His first concern was the beam-beam interaction in linear collider and he developed the computer simulation code CAIN and studied the possible interactions between colliding electron, positron, and both high-energy and laser photon beams. He was also interested in the beam-beam interaction in circular colliders and studied the crab-crossing scheme and beam-beam tune shift. Since the international high-energy physics community chose the superconducting technology for the next linear collider becoming International Linear Collider (ILC), and the ILC Global Design Effort (GDE) was established in 2005, his most works were concentrated on leading the ILC accelerator design. He also served as the chief of Linear Collider Promotion Office at KEK in 2006 – 2010. Since 2013, he has been working as a senior member of the Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC) and ILC International Development Team (IDT). He was awarded Nishina Memorial Prize in 1990 and USPAS Prize for Achievement in Accelerator Science and Technology in 2015. The ceremony of the 2024 Robert R. Wilson Prize and the award lecture is to be delivered during the APS April Meeting next year.