Alexios Polychronakos (born 1959, in Greece) is a theoretical physicist. He studied electrical engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (diploma in 1982) and did graduate work in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1987 [1] ) under the supervision of John Preskill.
Polychronakos is a professor of physics at the City College of New York. He is considered an authority on quantum field theory, quantum statistics, anyons, integrable systems, [2] and quantum fluids, having authored over 110 refereed papers. [3]
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2012), cited for "For important contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and integrable systems, including the Polychronakos model and the exchange operator formalism, fractional statistics, matrix model description of quantum Hall systems as well as other areas such as noncommutative geometry".
M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. Edward Witten first conjectured the existence of such a theory at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995. Witten's announcement initiated a flurry of research activity known as the second superstring revolution. Prior to Witten's announcement, string theorists had identified five versions of superstring theory. Although these theories initially appeared to be very different, work by many physicists showed that the theories were related in intricate and nontrivial ways. Physicists found that apparently distinct theories could be unified by mathematical transformations called S-duality and T-duality. Witten's conjecture was based in part on the existence of these dualities and in part on the relationship of the string theories to a field theory called eleven-dimensional supergravity.
The mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics are those mathematical formalisms that permit a rigorous description of quantum mechanics. This mathematical formalism uses mainly a part of functional analysis, especially Hilbert spaces, which are a kind of linear space. Such are distinguished from mathematical formalisms for physics theories developed prior to the early 1900s by the use of abstract mathematical structures, such as infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, and operators on these spaces. In brief, values of physical observables such as energy and momentum were no longer considered as values of functions on phase space, but as eigenvalues; more precisely as spectral values of linear operators in Hilbert space.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings, and related objects. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.
The de Broglie–Bohm theory, also known as the pilot wave theory, Bohmian mechanics, Bohm's interpretation, and the causal interpretation, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. It postulates that in addition to the wavefunction, an actual configuration of particles exists, even when unobserved. The evolution over time of the configuration of all particles is defined by a guiding equation. The evolution of the wave function over time is given by the Schrödinger equation. The theory is named after Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) and David Bohm (1917–1992).
Noncommutative geometry (NCG) is a branch of mathematics concerned with a geometric approach to noncommutative algebras, and with the construction of spaces that are locally presented by noncommutative algebras of functions, possibly in some generalized sense. A noncommutative algebra is an associative algebra in which the multiplication is not commutative, that is, for which does not always equal ; or more generally an algebraic structure in which one of the principal binary operations is not commutative; one also allows additional structures, e.g. topology or norm, to be possibly carried by the noncommutative algebra of functions.
Martin Charles Gutzwiller was a Swiss-American physicist, known for his work on field theory, quantum chaos, and complex systems. He spent most of his career at IBM Research, and was also an adjunct professor of physics at Yale University.
Mark Brian Wise is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist. He has conducted research in elementary particle physics and cosmology. He is best known for his role in the development of heavy quark effective theory (HQET), a mathematical formalism that has allowed physicists to make predictions about otherwise intractable problems in the theory of the strong nuclear interactions. He has also published work on mathematical models for finance and risk assessment.
In particle physics, the history of quantum field theory starts with its creation by Paul Dirac, when he attempted to quantize the electromagnetic field in the late 1920s. Major advances in the theory were made in the 1940s and 1950s, leading to the introduction of renormalized quantum electrodynamics (QED). The field theory behind QED was so accurate and successful in predictions that efforts were made to apply the same basic concepts for the other forces of nature. Beginning in 1954, the parallel was found by way of gauge theory, leading by the late 1970s, to quantum field models of strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force, united in the modern Standard Model of particle physics.
Asım Orhan Barut was a Turkish-American theoretical physicist.
Cosmas K. Zachos is a theoretical physicist. He was educated in physics at Princeton University, and did graduate work in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology under the supervision of John Henry Schwarz.
Sergei Vladimirovich Tyablikov was a Soviet theoretical physicist known for his significant contributions to statistical mechanics, solid-state physics, and for the development of the double-time Green function's formalism.
Thomas L. Curtright is a theoretical physicist at the University of Miami. He did undergraduate work in physics at the University of Missouri, and graduate work at Caltech under the supervision of Richard Feynman.
Jürg Martin Fröhlich is a Swiss mathematician and theoretical physicist. He is best known for introducing rigorous techniques for the analysis of statistical mechanics models, in particular continuous symmetry breaking, and for pioneering the study of topological phases of matter using low-energy effective field theories.
Friedrich "Fritz" Gesztesy is a well-known Austrian-American mathematical physicist and Professor of Mathematics at Baylor University, known for his important contributions in spectral theory, functional analysis, nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, ordinary and partial differential operators, and completely integrable systems. He has authored more than 300 publications on mathematics and physics.
Nikita Alexandrovich Nekrasov is a Russian mathematical and theoretical physicist at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and C.N.Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University in New York, and a Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Basil J. Hiley, is a British quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London.
Ali H. Chamseddine is a Lebanese physicist known for his contributions to particle physics, general relativity and mathematical physics. As of 2013, Chamseddine is a physics Professor at the American University of Beirut and the Institut des hautes études scientifiques.
Ramamurti Rajaraman is an emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the School of Physical Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was also the co-Chairman of the International Panel on Fissile Materials and a member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board. He has taught and conducted research in physics at the Indian Institute of Science, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and as a visiting professor at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and elsewhere. He received his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1963 from Cornell University. In addition to his physics publications, Rajaraman has written widely on topics including fissile material production in India and Pakistan and the radiological effects of nuclear weapon accidents.
Olaf Lechtenfeld is a German mathematical physicist, academic and researcher. He is a full professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Leibniz University, where he founded the Riemann Center for Geometry and Physics.