Russian theoretical physicist
Alexander Markovich Polyakov (Russian : Алекса́ндр Ма́ркович Поляко́в ; born 27 September 1945) is a Russian theoretical physicist , formerly at the Landau Institute in Moscow and, since 1989, at Princeton University , where he is the Joseph Henry Professor of Physics Emeritus.[ 1] [ 2]
Important discoveries [ edit ] Polyakov is known for a number of fundamental contributions to quantum field theory , including work on what is now called the 't Hooft–Polyakov monopole in non-Abelian gauge theory , independent from Gerard 't Hooft . Polyakov and coauthors discovered the so-called BPST instanton which, in turn, led to the discovery of the vacuum angle in QCD .[ 3] [ 4] His path integral formulation of string theory [ 5] had profound and lasting impacts on the conceptual and mathematical understanding of the theory. His paper "Infinite conformal symmetry in two-dimensional quantum field theory"[ 6] written with Alexander Belavin and Alexander Zamolodchikov laid down the foundations of two-dimensional conformal field theory and has classic status.[ 1] Polyakov also played an important role in elucidating the conceptual framework behind renormalization independent of Kenneth G. Wilson 's Nobel Prize–winning work. He formulated pioneering ideas in gauge/string duality long before the breakthrough of AdS/CFT using D-branes . Other insightful conjectures that came years or even decades before active work by others include integrability of gauge and string theories and certain ideas about turbulence.
Very early in his career, in a 1965 student work, Polyakov suggested (with Alexander Migdal ) a dynamical Higgs mechanism , slightly after but independently[ 7] from the publications of Peter Higgs and others. The paper was delayed by the Editorial Office of JETP, and was published only in 1966.[ 8]
Alexander Polyakov was awarded the Dirac Medal of the ICTP and the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics in 1986, the Lorentz Medal in 1994, the Oskar Klein Medal in 1996, the Harvey Prize in 2010, the Lars Onsager Prize (together with A. Belavin and A. Zamolodchikov ) in 2011 and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2013. On 19 November 2020 the German Physical Society announced it would award Alexander Polyakov the 2021 Max Planck Medal .
Polyakov was elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1984,[ 9] to the French Academy of Sciences in 1998[ 10] and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2005.[ 11]
[ 12]
Political positions [ edit ] In February-March 2022, he signed an open letter by Russian scientists condemning the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine ,[ 13] and another open letter by Breakthrough Prize laureates with the same message.[ 14]
“The garbage of the past often becomes the treasure of the present (and vice versa). ”[ 15]
“There are no tables for path integrals. ” (quoted in [ 16] )
“I wanted to learn about elementary particles by studying boiling water. ” [ 17] (paraphrased in [ 18] )
^ a b "Princeton celebrates Polyakov's 60th" . CERN Courier (Mar 1): 2. 2006. Archived from the original on 2011-07-09. Retrieved 2007-09-22 .
^ "Alexander Polyakov | Department of Physics" .
^ Belavin AA; Polyakov AM; Schwartz AS; Tyupkin YS (1975). "Pseudoparticle solutions of the Yang-Mills equations". Phys. Lett. B . 59 (1): 85–7. Bibcode :1975PhLB...59...85B . doi :10.1016/0370-2693(75)90163-X .
^ Polyakov AM (1977). "Quark confinement and topology of gauge theories". Nucl. Phys. B . 120 (3): 429–58. Bibcode :1977NuPhB.120..429P . doi :10.1016/0550-3213(77)90086-4 .
^ Polyakov AM (1981). "Quantum geometry of bosonic strings". Phys. Lett. B . 103 (3): 207–10. Bibcode :1981PhLB..103..207P . doi :10.1016/0370-2693(81)90743-7 .
^ Belavin AA; Polyakov AM; Zamolodchikov AB (1984). "Infinite conformal symmetry in two-dimensional quantum field theory" . Nucl. Phys. B . 241 (2): 333–80. Bibcode :1984NuPhB.241..333B . doi :10.1016/0550-3213(84)90052-X .
^ Polyakov, A (1992). "A View from the Island". arXiv :hep-th/9211140 .
^ A. A. Migdal and A. M. Polyakov, "Spontaneous Breakdown of Strong Interaction Symmetry and Absence of Massless Particles" Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine , Soviet Physics JETP , July 1966
^ Alexander M. Polyakov . Site of RAS
^ Alexander Polyakov . Académie des sciences
^ Polyakov, Alexandre . NAS Section: Physics
^ Dirac Medalist Elected to NAS Archived 2007-08-16 at the Wayback Machine . ICTP News. 9/5/2005
^ "Открытое письмо российских учёных и научных журналистов против войны с Украиной" [An open letter from Russian scientists and scientific journalist against the war in Ukraine] (in Russian). 24 February 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2022 .
^ An open letter from Breakthrough Prize laureates
^ Polyakov, Alexander (1987). Gauge Fields and Strings . London, UK: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-3-7186-0393-0 .
^ Auerbach, Assa (1994). Interacting Electrons and Quantum Magnetism . New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-94286-5 .
^ Polyakov, Alexander (2003). "Interview with Alexander Polyakov" . Dibner Institute for the history of science and technology . Retrieved 2019-10-16 .
^ Rychkov, Slava (2019). "IPhT's theoretical physics courses: lorentzian methods in conformal field theory" . Institut de physique théorique - IPhT Saclay . Retrieved 2019-10-16 .
Mathematics Fundamental physics
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Special : Stephen Hawking , Peter Jenni , Fabiola Gianotti (ATLAS), Michel Della Negra , Tejinder Virdee , Guido Tonelli , Joseph Incandela (CMS) and Lyn Evans (LHC) (2013)
Alexander Polyakov (2013)
Michael Green and John Henry Schwarz (2014)
Saul Perlmutter and members of the Supernova Cosmology Project ; Brian Schmidt , Adam Riess and members of the High-Z Supernova Team (2015)
Special : Ronald Drever , Kip Thorne , Rainer Weiss and contributors to LIGO project (2016)
Yifang Wang , Kam-Biu Luk and the Daya Bay team , Atsuto Suzuki and the KamLAND team, Kōichirō Nishikawa and the K2K / T2K team, Arthur B. McDonald and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory team, Takaaki Kajita and Yōichirō Suzuki and the Super-Kamiokande team (2016)
Joseph Polchinski , Andrew Strominger , Cumrun Vafa (2017)
Charles L. Bennett , Gary Hinshaw , Norman Jarosik , Lyman Page Jr. , David Spergel (2018)
Special : Jocelyn Bell Burnell (2018)
Charles Kane and Eugene Mele (2019)
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The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (2020)
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Jeffery W. Kelly , Katalin Karikó , Drew Weissman , Shankar Balasubramanian , David Klenerman and Pascal Mayer (2022)
Clifford P. Brangwynne , Anthony A. Hyman , Demis Hassabis , John Jumper , Emmanuel Mignot , Masashi Yanagisawa (2023)
Carl June , Michel Sadelain , Sabine Hadida , Paul Negulescu , Fredrick Van Goor, Thomas Gasser, Ellen Sidransky and Andrew Singleton (2024)
International National Academics Other