Bruno Pontecorvo

Bruno Pontecorvo (Italian: [ponteˈkɔrvo]; Russian:

Бру́ но Макси́ мович Понтеко́ рво, Bruno Maksimovich Bruno Pontecorvo
Pontecorvo; 22 August 1913 – 24 September 1993) was an
Italian and Soviet nuclear physicist, an early assistant of
Enrico Fermi and the author of numerous studies in high
energy physics, especially on neutrinos. A convinced
communist, he defected to the Soviet Union in 1950, where
he continued his research on the decay of the muon and on
neutrinos. The prestigious Pontecorvo Prize was instituted
in his memory in 1995.

The fourth of eight children of a wealthy Jewish-Italian

family, Pontecorvo studied physics at the University of
Rome La Sapienza, under Fermi, becoming the youngest of
his Via Panisperna boys. In 1934 he participated in Fermi's
famous experiment showing the properties of slow neutrons
that led the way to the discovery of nuclear fission. He Pontecorvo in 1955
moved to Paris in 1936, where he conducted research under
Born 22 August 1913
Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Influenced by his cousin,
Emilio Sereni, he joined the Italian Communist Party, Marina di Pisa, Italy
whose leader were in Paris as refugees, and as did his sisters Died 24 September 1993
Giuliana and Laura and brother Gillo. The Italian Fascist (aged 80)
regime's 1938 racial laws against Jews caused his family Dubna, Moscow Oblast,
members to leave Italy for Britain, France and the United Russia
States.
Citizenship Italy, Britain, Soviet
When the German Army closed in on Paris during the Union
Second World War, Pontecorvo, his brother Gillo, cousin Alma mater University of Rome La
Emilio Sereni and Salvador Luria fled the city on bicycles.
Sapienza
He eventually made his way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he
applied his knowledge of nuclear physics to prospecting for Known for Neutrino oscillation
oil and minerals. In 1943, he joined the British Tube Alloys
team at the Montreal Laboratory in Canada. This became Pontecorvo–Maki–
part of the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic Nakagawa–Sakata
bombs. At Chalk River Laboratories, he worked on the matrix
design of the nuclear reactor ZEEP, the first reactor outside
of the United States, which went critical in 1945, followed Relatives Gillo Pontecorvo
by the NRX reactor in 1947. He also looked into cosmic (brother)
rays, the decay of muons, and what would become his Guido Pontecorvo
specialty, neutrinos. He moved to Britain in 1949, where he (brother)
worked for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Marco Pontecorvo
Harwell. (nephew)

After his defection to the Soviet Union in 1950, he worked at Scientific career
the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. Fields Nuclear physics
He had proposed using chlorine to detect neutrinos. In a
1959 paper, he argued that the electron neutrino (νe) and
the muon neutrino (νμ) were different particles. Solar Institutions Collège de France
neutrinos were detected by the Homestake Experiment, but Well Surveys
only between one third and one half of the predicted Montreal Laboratory
number were found. In response to this solar neutrino Chalk River Laboratories
problem, he proposed a phenomenon known as neutrino Atomic Energy Research
oscillation, whereby electron neutrinos became muon Establishment
neutrinos. The existence of the oscillations was finally
Joint Institute for Nuclear
established by the Super-Kamiokande experiment in 1998.
Research
He also predicted in 1958 that supernovae would produce
intense bursts of neutrinos, which was confirmed in 1987 Academic Enrico Fermi
when Supernova SN1987A was detected by neutrino advisors
detectors.

Biography

Early life and education

Pontecorvo was born on 22 August 1913 in Marina di Pisa, the fourth of eight children of Massimo
Pontecorvo and his wife Maria née Maroni. His older brother Guido, who was born in 1907,
became a geneticist. His brother Paolo, who was born in 1909, became an engineer who worked on
radar during World War II. His older sister Giuliana was born in 1911. His younger brother Gillo
was born in 1919, and is best known as the director of The Battle of Algiers. He also had two
younger sisters; Laura, who was born in 1921, and Anna, who was born in 1924, and a younger
brother Giovanni, who was born in 1926. His family was a wealthy family; Massimo owned three
textile factories employing over 1,000 people. The family was Jewish and non-observant,[1][2][3]
from Rome on his father's side and from Mantua - on his mother's. His grandfather on the
maternal side, Arrigo Maroni (1852–1924), born in Mantua, was director of the Fatebenefratelli
Hospital in Milan;[4] his mother's cousin was a notable zoologist Elisa Gurrieri-Norsa (1868-
1939).[5][6][7]

He enterered the University of Pisa intending to study engineering, but after two years he decided
to switch to physics in 1931. On the advice of his brother Guido, he decided to study at the
University of Rome La Sapienza, where Enrico Fermi had gathered together a group of promising
young scientists known as the Via Panisperna boys after the name of the street where the Institute
of Physics of Rome University was then situated. At the age of 18 he was admitted to the third year
of Physics.[8] Fermi described Pontecorvo as "scientifically one of the brightest men with whom I
have come in contact in my scientific career".[9] As their youngest member, the group nicknamed
him Cucciolo, which means "puppy".[10]

In 1934, Pontecorvo contributed to Fermi's famous experiment showing the properties of slow
neutrons that led the way to the discovery of nuclear fission.[11] Pontecorvo's name was included
on the Via Panisperna boys' patent "To increase the production of artificial radioactivity with
neutron bombardment". He was made a temporary assistant at the Royal Institute of Physics on 1
November 1934 and the University of Rome, and on 7 November, he was listed as co-author, along
with Fermi and Rasetti, of a landmark paper on slow neutrons that reported that hydrogen slowed
neutrons more than heavy elements, and that slow neutrons were more easily absorbed.[12] An
Italian patent was granted for the process in October 1935, in the name of Fermi, Pontecorvo,
Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Emilio Segrè. A US patent was granted on 2 July 1940.[13]

Early career
In February 1936, Pontecorvo left Italy and moved to Paris to work in the laboratory of Irène and
Frédéric Joliot-Curie at the Collège de France on a one-year scholarship to study the effects of
collisions of neutrons with protons and on the electromagnetic transitions among isomers. During
this period, influenced by his cousin, Emilio Sereni, he adopted the ideals of communism to which
he remained loyal for the rest of his life.[14][15] He formed a relationship with Helene Marianne
Nordblom, a Swedish woman working in Paris as a nanny.[16] Whether because of his relationship
with Marianne, his interesting work on isomers, or the deteriorating political situation in Italy, he
turned down an opportunity in 1937 to apply for a tenured position at the University of Rome to
stay in Paris.[15][17]

Marianne moved in with Pontecorvo at the Hôtel des Grands Hommes on the Place du Panthéon
on 4 January 1938. Their son, Gil, was born on 30 July. Her visa expired, and she had to return to
Sweden in September. Pontecorvo accompanied her, leaving Gil behind in a residential nursery in
Paris. Travelling back to Paris alone, he dined with Manne Siegbahn and met with Niels Bohr and
Lise Meitner on 12 October 1938.[18] Pontecorvo was now unable to return to Italy because of the
Fascist regime's racial laws against the Jews. This caused the breakup of the Via Panisperna boys,
with Fermi moving to the United States.[19] Pontecorvo's family also dispersed.[20] Guido moved to
Britain in 1938,[21] followed by Giovanni, Laura and Anna in 1939,[20] while Gillo joined
Pontecorvo in Paris.[22]

Working in collaboration with the French physicist André Lazard at Joliot-Curie's laboratory at
Ivry-sur-Seine, Pontecorvo discovered what Frédéric Joliot-Curie called "nuclear
phosphorescence"; the emission of X-rays when neutrons and protons were excited and returned
to their ground state.[23][24] He also discovered that some isomers do not change into other
elements on decaying radioactively. This expanded the scope for their use in medical applications.
For this ground-breaking research, Pontecorvo received a Curie-Carnegie scholarship, and funding
for his work from the French National Centre for Scientific Research.[23]

Second World War

Escape from France

In June 1939, Pontecorvo applied for a visa to visit Sweden, but his application was rejected. On 23
August came the news of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. He joined the French Communist Party
the next day as an affirmation of his personal faith in the Soviet Union. Marianne rejoined him in
Paris on 6 September 1939, three days after the British and French declaration of war on Germany
in response to the German invasion of Poland that started the Second World War in Europe. They
were married on 9 January 1940.[25]

As the Germans closed in on the city in May 1940, they decided to leave. Although the British
offered refuge to French nuclear scientists, including Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski, they
regarded Pontecorvo as an "undesirable".[26] Fortunately, Segrè had been given an offer of
employment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by two European expatriates who were looking for an expert on
neutron physics. Segrè had turned down the offer — he already had a good job at the University of
California — but recommended Pontecorvo.[27]

On 2 June 1940, he saw Marianne and Gil off with their chattels on a train to Toulouse, where his
sister Giuliana lived with her husband, Duccio Tabet. On 13 June, just a day before the Germans
entered Paris, Pontecorvo, his brother Gillo, cousin Emilio Sereni and Salvador Luria set out for
Toulouse on bicycles. It took them ten days to reach Toulouse. Luria went to Marseilles, from
whence he eventually made his way to the United States.[27] Pontecorvo, Marianne, Gil, Giuliana
and Tabet boarded a train that took them to Lisbon via Madrid on 19 July 1940. Both women were
pregnant. Marianne had a miscarriage, and was hardly fit to travel, but nonetheless boarded the
liner Quanza on 9 August 1940 on its voyage bringing refugees to the United States. Both women
were seasick. On 19 August 1940, the ship reached New York City, where they stayed with his
brother Paolo.[28] While there, he visited Fermi at his new home in Leonia, New Jersey.[29]

Prospecting in Oklahoma

In Tulsa, Pontecorvo went to work for two European migrants, Jakov "Jake" Neufeld and Serge
Alexandrovich Scherbatskoy, who had founded a company called Well Surveys with funds
provided by Standard Oil.[30] Their idea was to apply nuclear physics to searching for minerals. A
gamma ray device had been successful at analysing rock outcroppings. Inspired by the work done
in Italy and France, they reasoned that neutrons, being without electrical charge, might be able to
detect different elements beneath the surface by inducing radioactivity on the rocks. In
Pontecorvo, they had the expert they needed.[31]

Pontecorvo created a neutron source using radium and beryllium, as the Via Panisperna boys had,
with paraffin wax as a neutron moderator, and measured the absorption of different minerals
using methods developed by Fermi and Amaldi. By June 1941, he had a device that could
differentiate shale, limestone and sandstone, and map the transitions between them. The
technique may be considered the first practical application of the discovery of slow neutrons, and
would still be in use decades later for well logging.[31][32] He filed four patents relating to his
instrumentation.[33]

By late 1941, Pontecorvo was having difficulty securing the radioisotopes that he needed.
Unbeknown to him, the Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to build atomic bombs, was
cornering the market. In an attempt to obtain them, he met with Fermi, von Halban and George
Placzek in New York in April 1942. He was unable to secure the supplies he wanted, but Fermi
showed an unexpected keen interest in the Wells Surveys work.[34]

Tube Alloys

The meeting with Fermi yielded no supplies, but it did result in Pontecorvo receiving an offer from
von Halban and Placzek to join the Tube Alloys team at the Montreal Laboratory in Canada.[34]
There was some concern from Sir Edward Appleton over his appointment, not because of
Pontecorvo's political beliefs, but on account of the fact that he was not a British national, and
there were already a large number of foreign scientists working on Tube Alloys. Appleton was
ultimately persuaded due to Pontecorvo's reputation, and the fact that good physicists were in
short supply.[35] Pontecorvo was officially appointed to Tube Alloys on 15 January 1943, and
arrived in Montreal with his family on 7 February 1943.[36] The Montreal team designed a nuclear
reactor using heavy water as a neutron moderator, but lacked the quantity of heavy water
needed.[37] In August 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt negotiated the Quebec Agreement, which
resulted in a resumption of cooperation between the United States and Great Britain, merging
Tube Alloys into the Manhattan Project.[38]

John Cockcroft became director of the Montreal Laboratory in 1944. For safety reasons, he decided
to build the reactor at the remote Chalk River Laboratories. With an eye on a post-war nuclear
program, he had Pontecorvo and Alan Nunn May "debrief" Manhattan Project scientists who
visited Canada, in practice spying for Britain. Unfortunately, Nunn May was also a Soviet spy.[39]
Pontecorvo's second son was born on 20 March 1944, and was named Tito after the Yugoslavian
communist leader.[40] A third son, Antonio, was born in July 1945.[41] With heavy water supplied
by the United States, the reactor at Chalk River, known as ZEEP went critical on 5 September
1945.[42] In addition to reactor design, Pontecorvo also looked into cosmic rays, the decay of
 muons, and what would become his obsession,
neutrinos.[43][44][45][46] He wrote 25 papers related to reactor
design, although only two were published.[47][48][49] He also
did some prospecting with his old firm, searching for uranium
deposits near Port Radium in the Northwest Territories.[50]

Physicists were in great demand after the war ended in August

1945, and Pontecorvo received attractive and lucrative offers
from several universities in the United States.[51] Instead, on 21
February 1946, he accepted an offer from Cockcroft to join the
NRX and ZEEP buildings at Chalk
British Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE). For
River in 1945. NRX was for a time
the time being, he remained at Chalk River for the
the world's most powerful research
commissioning of the new NRX reactor in 1947. He was one of
reactor.
four physicists present in the control room when the NRX was
started up on the night of 21–22 July 1947. At the time, it had
five times the neutron flux of any other reactor, and was the most powerful research reactor in the
world.[47] He acquired the nickname "Ramon Novarro" after the actor of that name following an
adventure in which he made a trip to Boston with two women, which culminated in Marianne
clearing out the bank account and departing for Banff with the children; but they were reconciled.
Although he had previously taken steps to become a United States citizen, he instead became a
British subject on 7 February 1948. He finally departed Chalk River for the United Kingdom on 24
January 1949.[52]

Defection

At Harwell, Pontecorvo continued to be involved in reactor design projects. As a member of the

Power Steering Committee (PSC), he was involved in discussions of the production and use of
fissile materials, and of the materials used in construction of reactors.[53] In 1949, other Via
Panisperna boys, particularly Emilio Segrè, began to press their claim over patents relating to the
behaviour of slow neutrons, which were at the heart of nuclear reactor—and nuclear weapon—
design. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) therefore began looking into their
backgrounds. It noted, from its 1943 Manhattan Project files, that Pontecorvo's siblings Giuliana,
Laura and Gillo were communists, and that Pontecorvo and Marianne were probably communists
too, and reported this to MI5 in Britain, and MI6's Kim Philby in Washington, D.C.[54]

In February 1950, Pontecorvo's Harwell colleague Klaus Fuchs was arrested for espionage, and the
AERE began to take security more seriously,[54] and Pontecorvo was interviewed by Henry Arnold,
the security officer at AERE. While Arnold had no evidence that Pontecorvo was a Soviet spy, he
did feel that he was a security risk, and recommended that he be moved to a position where he did
not have access to Top Secret material. Herbert Skinner suggested to Pontecorvo that he apply for
a newly created professorship at the University of Liverpool, where Skinner held the Lyon Jones
chair of experimental physics. In June 1950, Pontecorvo was offered the position.[55]

On 1 September 1950, in the middle of a holiday in Italy, Pontecorvo abruptly flew from Rome to
Stockholm with his wife and three sons without informing friends or relatives. On 2 September he
was helped by Soviet agents to enter the Soviet Union from Finland. His abrupt disappearance
caused much concern to many of the western intelligence services, especially those of Britain,
Canada and the United States, that were worried about the escape of atomic secrets to the Soviet
Union, and of Finland and Sweden, through which Pontecorvo and Marianne had been allowed to
travel without valid passports and visas.[56]

In 1952, Pontecorvo's potential role in the transfer of nuclear secrets to Russia was discussed in
American newspapers.[57]
According to Oleg Gordievsky, the highest-ranking KGB officer ever to defect,[58] and Pavel
Sudoplatov, the former deputy director of Foreign Intelligence for the Soviet Union,[59] Pontecorvo
was a Soviet spy.[60][61] However, Sudoplatov misidentified Pontecorvo as the spy codenamed
Mlad, whom we now know was Ted Hall.[62] While Pontecorvo always denied working on nuclear
weapons, in Canada, Britain or the Soviet Union,[63] he never confirmed or denied that he was a
spy.[64] The actual evidence against him was flimsy.[65] Frank Close noted that the blueprints of
the Canadian NRX reactor had made their way to the Soviet Union, and Lona Cohen obtained a
sample of uranium from the NRX after it started operation in 1947. Nunn May could not have been
the culprit, so Pontecorvo is the prime suspect.[66]

In the USSR Pontecorvo was welcomed with honours and given a

number of privileges reserved only to the Soviet nomenklatura. He
worked until his death in what is now the Joint Institute for
Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, concentrating entirely on
theoretical studies of high energy particles and continuing his
research on neutrinos and decay of muons. In recognition of his
research he was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1953, membership in
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1955 and the Soviet
Monument Bruno Pontecorvo
Academy of Sciences in 1958, and two Orders of Lenin.[67] He was (left) meet Venedikt Dzhelepov
awarded the Lenin Prize in 1964 for his work on the weak in Dubna.
interaction.[68] He began a lifelong affair with Rodam
Amiredzhibi, the wife of poet Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov, in
1950.[69] In 1955, he appeared in public at a press conference where he explained to the world the
motivations of his choice to leave the West and work in the Soviet Union. As a result, the United
Kingdom revoked his British citizenship on 24 May 1955.[70] Pontecorvo was not permitted to
leave the Soviet Union for many years; his first trip abroad being in 1978 when he travelled to Italy
for celebrations of Amaldi's 70th birthday. Thereafter, he made frequent trips to Italy, and
occasional visits to other countries. France refused to allow him to visit in 1982 and 1984, but
relented in 1989.[71]

Later life

The scientific work of Pontecorvo is full of formidable intuitions, some of which have represented
milestones in modern physics. Much of this involved the neutrino, a subatomic particle first
proposed theoretically by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 in order to explain undetected energy that
escaped during beta decay so that the law of conservation of energy was not violated. Fermi named
it the neutrino, Italian for "little neutral one",[72] and in 1934, proposed his theory of beta decay
which explained that the electrons emitted from the nucleus were created by the decay of a neutron
into a proton, an electron, and a neutrino.[73][74] Initially neutrinos were thought to be
undetectable, but in 1945 Pontecorvo noted that a neutrino striking a chlorine nucleus could
transform it into unstable argon-37 that emits, with a 34 days half-life, after a K-capture reaction, a
2.8 keV Auger electron allowing its direct detection:[75][76][77]
37 − 37
ν+ Cl → e + Ar

Pontecorvo's 1945 paper credits the idea using carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) to the French physicist
Jules Guéron.[78] Experiments were conducted at Chalk River using the NRX as a neutrino source,
but were unsuccessful, and were abandoned in 1949, after Pontecorvo had left.[47] The experiment
was unsuccessful because, unknown at the time, nuclear reactors produced antineutrinos instead
of neutrinos. In what is now known as the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment, Frederick Reines
and Clyde Cowan detected antineutrinos in 1955, for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physics in
1995.[79]
 The idea was taken up again in the search for solar neutrinos.
Theoretically, the Sun produced neutrinos in the course of
nuclear fusion reactions. Pontecorvo credited Maurice Pryce for
this idea.[80] The most common, the proton–proton chain
reaction in which hydrogen is fused to form helium produces
neutrinos that are not energetic enough to interact with
chlorine. However, the much less common CNO cycle that
produces carbon, nitrogen and oxygen does.[81] In the late
1960s, Ray Davis and John N. Bahcall detected solar neutrinos
in the Homestake Experiment, for which Davis was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.[82] The experiment was the
first to successfully detect and count solar neutrinos, but the
number of neutrinos detected was between one third and one
Supernova SN1987A (the bright half of the predicted number. This became the solar neutrino
object in the centre), as seen problem.[83] For a time, scientists contemplated the awful
through the Hubble Space possibility that the Sun might have burned out.[84]
Telescope
The problem had already been solved by Pontecorvo in
1968.[83] In 1959, a powerful accelerator (that was never built)
was being designed, and he began considering experiments that could be performed with it. He
contemplated a project investigating muons.[47] Julian Schwinger had hypothesised that particles
experience the weak interaction through exchanging W bosons. The W boson would not be
discovered until 1983, but a problem immediately surfaced. Gerald Feinberg pointed out that this
implied that some interactions that had never been observed should occur, but conceded that this
was only true if the neutrinos associated with electrons were the same as those associated with
muons.[85]

In a 1959 paper, Pontecorvo listed 21 possible reactions involving neutrinos and noted that some of
them could not occur unless the electron neutrino (νe) and the muon neutrino (νμ) were one and
the same. (Thus an inability to find those reactions would be evidence that there were two types of
neutrinos.) This paper introduced this notation for neutrinos, which we use today,[47][86] and
listed the reasons why he felt that having two types of neutrinos was "attractive from the point of
view of symmetry and the classification of particles".[87] The prediction that neutrinos associated
with electrons are different from those associated with muons was confirmed in 1962.[88] In 1988
Jack Steinberger, Leon M. Lederman and Melvin Schwartz were awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics for the discovery of the muon neutrino.[89]

Pontecorvo's solution to the solar neutrino problem involved an

idea that he had first considered in 1957, and developed over
the following decade.[90][91] This was the idea that neutrinos
may convert into other types of neutrinos, a phenomenon
known as neutrino oscillation. Somewhere between the Sun
and the Earth, electron neutrinos might transform into muon
neutrinos. An important point was that for this to happen,
neutrinos could not have zero mass, and therefore could not
travel at the speed of light. The existence of the oscillations was Pontecorvo's gravestone at the
finally established by the Super-Kamiokande experiment in Cimitero Acattolico of Rome
1998 and later confirmed by other experiments.[92]

This prediction was recognised by the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics, awarded to Takaaki Kajita and
Arthur B. McDonald "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have
mass".[93] Pontecorvo also predicted in 1958 that supernovae would produce intense bursts of
neutrinos.[87] Few scientists were more excited when Supernova SN1987A was detected by
neutrino detectors.[94]

Pontecorvo died in Dubna on 24 September 1993,[47] afflicted by Parkinson's disease.[95] In

accordance with his wishes, half of his ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, and
another half in Dubna in Russia.[96] In 1995, in recognition of his scientific merits, the prestigious
Pontecorvo Prize has been instituted by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The prize,
awarded annually to an individual scientist, recognises "the most significant investigations in
elementary particle physics", as acknowledged by the international scientific community.[97] In
2006, Moscow historical society Moskultprog unveiled an artistic plaque celebrating Pontecorvo's
Moscow house at 9 Tverskaya Street.[98]

Notes
1. Simone Turchetti. The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (pp. 15—
16) (https://books.google.com/books?id=_eHHFX6mRTgC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=)
2. Miriam Mafai. Il lungo freddo (https://books.google.com/books?id=QrC0VRlYaQgC&pg=PT32&
lpg=PT32&dq=)
3. Close 2015, pp. 3–7, 197.
4. Necrologio Arrigo Maroni (L'università italiana rivista dell'istruzione superiore) (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=t6V56wgtzAsC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=)
5. Adele Maroni (necrologio, L'università italiana rivista dell'istruzione superiore) (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=NLjsjZW_QCYC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=)
6. Mario Avagliano, Marco Palmieri. Di pura razza italiana (https://books.google.com/books?id=P
n6ZBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT80&lpg=PT80&dq=)
7. Nazario Sauro Onofri. Ebrei e fascismo a Bologna (p. 127) (https://www.storiaememoriadibolog
na.it/files/1943-45/onofri/ebri-e-fascismo-a-bologna.pdf)
8. Close 2015, pp. 7–8.
9. Wellerstein, Alex (20 February 2015). "Physicist. Defector. Spy?". Science. 347 (6224): 833.
Bibcode:2015Sci...347..833W (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015Sci...347..833W).
doi:10.1126/science.aaa3654 (https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.aaa3654). S2CID 51608789
(https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:51608789).
10. Turchetti 2003, pp. 392–393.
11. Close 2015, pp. 16–19.
12. Close 2015, pp. 22–24.
13. Fermi 1954, p. 251. The US patent was U.S. Patent 2,206,634 (https://patents.google.com/pat
ent/US2206634).
14. Close 2015, pp. 30–33.
15. Close 2015, pp. 36–38.
16. Close 2015, pp. 33–35.
17. Close 2015, p. 196.
18. Close 2015, pp. 38–41.
19. Close 2015, p. 29.
20. Close 2015, p. 6.
21. Cohen, B. L. (2007). "Guido Pontecorvo ("Ponte"): A Centenary Memoir" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2147990). Genetics. 177 (3): 1439–1444.
doi:10.1093/genetics/177.3.1439 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fgenetics%2F177.3.1439).
PMC 2147990 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2147990). PMID 18039877 (http
s://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18039877).
22. Close 2015, p. 42.
23. Turchetti 2012, p. 34.
24. Pontecorvo, Bruno (30 April 1938). "Isomeric Forms of Radio Rhodium". Nature. 141 (3574):
785–786. Bibcode:1938Natur.141..785P (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1938Natur.141..78
5P). doi:10.1038/141785b0 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F141785b0). S2CID 4115586 (https://ap
i.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4115586).
25. Close 2015, pp. 46–50.
26. Close 2015, p. 52.
27. Close 2015, pp. 54–59.
28. Close 2015, pp. 62–63.
29. Fermi 1954, p. 254.
30. Close 2015, p. 71.
31. Close 2015, pp. 70–75.
32. Pontecorvo, B. (1941). "Neutron Well Logging – A New Geological Method Based on Nuclear
Physics". Oil and Gas Journal. 40: 32–33.
33. Turchetti 2003, p. 394. The patents were: U.S. Patent 2,353,619 (https://patents.google.com/p
atent/US2353619), U.S. Patent 2,508,772 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US2508772),
U.S. Patent 2,398,324 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US2398324) and U.S. Patent
2,349,753 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US2349753).
34. Close 2015, pp. 82–85.
35. Gowing 1964, p. 191.
36. Close 2015, p. 89.
37. Close 2015, p. 85.
38. Gowing 1964, pp. 168–173.
39. Close 2015, pp. 95–96.
40. Close 2015, p. 99.
41. Close 2015, p. 123.
42. Close 2015, p. 103.
43. Close 2015, pp. 109–113.
44. Pontecorvo, Brunoi (1 August 1947). "Nuclear Capture of Mesons and the Meson Decay".
Physical Review. 72 (3): 246–247. Bibcode:1947PhRv...72..246P (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.ed
u/abs/1947PhRv...72..246P). doi:10.1103/PhysRev.72.246 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRe
v.72.246).
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46. Hincks, E. P.; Pontecorvo, Bruno (15 September 1948). "The Absorption of Charged Particles
from the 2.2-μsec. Meson Decay". Physical Review. 74 (6): 697–698.
Bibcode:1948PhRv...74..697H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1948PhRv...74..697H).
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.74.697 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.74.697).
47. Fidecaro, Giuseppe (4 December 1996). "Bruno Pontecorvo: From Rome To Dubna (personal
recollections)" (http://www.df.unipi.it/~rossi/PONTE_5.pdf) (PDF). Università di Pisa. Retrieved
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48. Auger, P.; Mumm, A.M.; Pontecorvo, B. (1947). "The Transport Mean Free Path of Thermal
Neutrons in Heavy Water". Canadian Journal of Research. 25a (3): 143–156.
Bibcode:1947CJRes..25A.143A (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1947CJRes..25A.143A).
doi:10.1139/cjr47a-016 (https://doi.org/10.1139%2Fcjr47a-016). ISSN 0366-7383 (https://www.
worldcat.org/issn/0366-7383). PMID 20251356 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20251356).
49. Mumm, A.M.; Pontecorvo, B. (1947). "Spatial Distribution of Neutrons in Hydrogenous Media
containing Bismuth, Lead, and Iron". Canadian Journal of Research. 25a (3): 157–167.
Bibcode:1947CJRes..25A.157M (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1947CJRes..25A.157M).
doi:10.1139/cjr47a-017 (https://doi.org/10.1139%2Fcjr47a-017). ISSN 0366-7383 (https://www.
worldcat.org/issn/0366-7383).
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53. Turchetti 2003, p. 402.
54. Close 2015, pp. 148–154, 197–199.
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57. " "Russia's Atomic Fist" - Pontecorvo, Russian Spy (1952)" (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1
3942350/russias_atomic_fist_pontecorvo/). The Courier-Gazette. 1 August 1952. p. 1.
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s/2001/jan/30/freedomofinformation.uk). The Guardian. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
59. Stout, David (28 September 1996). "Pavel Sudoplatov, 89, Dies; Top Soviet Spy Who Accused
Oppenheimer" (https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/28/world/pavel-sudoplatov-89-dies-top-sovie
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References
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Atomic Spy Conspiracy (https://archive.org/details/bombshellsecrets00albr). New York: Times
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Close, Frank (2015). Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy. New
York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-06998-9. OCLC 897001600 (https://www.worldcat.org/ocl
c/897001600).
Fermi, Laura (1954). Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi (https://archive.org/details/
atomsinfamilymyl00fermrich). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 537507 (https://ww
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Gowing, Margaret (1964). Britain and Atomic Energy, 1935–1945. London: Macmillan
Publishing. OCLC 3195209 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3195209).
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Turchetti, Simone (December 2003). "Atomic Secrets and Governmental Lies: Nuclear
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Further reading
Mafai, Miriam (2012). Il lungo freddo: Storia di Bruno Pontecorvo, lo scienziato che scelse
l'Urss (in Italian). Milan: Bur. ISBN 978-88-586-3839-2.

External links
Biography / Scientific Works / Popular Articles / About B. Pontecorvo / Photoalbum (http://ponte
corvo.jinr.ru/) (in English and Russian)
1950s news of Pontecorvo's disappearance (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/o
ctober/27/newsid_3091000/3091390.stm) from the BBC archive
Richards, Charles (2 August 1992). "Confessions of an atom spy: Forty years after Bruno
Pontecorvo, a British scientist, went to work for Moscow, he tells Charles Richards in Rome
why he changed side" (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/confessions-of-an-atom-spy
-forty-years-after-bruno-pontecorvo-a-british-scientist-went-to-work-for-1537646.html). The
Independent.
Jodcast Interview with Professor Frank Close on the life, research and disappearance of Bruno
Pontecorvo (http://www.jodcast.net/archive/201512Extra/)
The Papers of Bruno Pontecorvo (https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/resources/
1775) held at Churchill Archives Centre

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