Bertrand Halperin

Last updated
Bert Halperin
Bert Halperin.JPG
Born (1941-12-06) December 6, 1941 (age 82)
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Alma mater Harvard University (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known for Hexatic phase
Quantum Hall effect
KTHNY theory
Awards Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1982)
Lars Onsager Prize (2001)
Wolf Prize in Physics (2003)
Scientific career
Fields Physics
Institutions Harvard University
Doctoral advisor John J. Hopfield
Doctoral students Catherine Kallin

Bertrand I. Halperin (born December 6, 1941) is an American physicist, former holder of the Hollis Chair of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy at the physics department of Harvard University. [1] In 2006, he received the Wolf Prize in Physics for his various contribution to condensed matter physics, including work on KTHNY theory for two-dimensional melting.

Contents

Career

Halperin was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up in the Crown Heights neighborhood and attended public schools. His mother was Eva Teplitzky Halperin and his father Morris Halperin. His mother was a college administrator and his father a customs inspector. [2] Both his parents were born in USSR. His paternal grandmother's family the Maximovs claimed descent from Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (BeShT).[ citation needed ]

He attended Harvard University (class of 1961), [2] and did his graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, with John J. Hopfield (PhD 1965). [1]

After working at Bell Laboratories for 10 years (1966–1976), Murray Hill, New Jersey he was appointed professor of physics at Harvard University.

Work

In the 1970s, he, together with David Robert Nelson, worked out a theory of two-dimensional melting, predicting the hexatic phase before it was experimentally observed by Pindak et al. In the 1980s, he made contributions to the theory of the quantum Hall effect and of the fractional quantum Hall effect. His recent interests lie in the area of strongly interacting low-dimensional electron systems. [3]

Honors and awards

Halperin was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1972, [4] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1981, [5] a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1982, [6] and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1990. [7] In 2001, he was awarded the Lars Onsager Prize. [8] In 2003, he was awarded half of the Wolf Prize in physics for his work on "two- dimensional melting, disordered systems and strongly interacting electrons", the other half went to Anthony James Leggett. [9] In 2016 he was Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecturer. [10]

In 2018, he was awarded the 2019 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research, [3] for "his seminal contributions to theoretical condensed matter physics, especially his pioneering work on the role of topology in both classical and quantum systems." [11]

Selected bibliography

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leo Kadanoff</span> American physicist

Leo Philip Kadanoff was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at the University of Chicago and a former president of the American Physical Society (APS). He contributed to the fields of statistical physics, chaos theory, and theoretical condensed matter physics.

Michael Ellis Fisher was an English physicist, as well as chemist and mathematician, known for his many seminal contributions to statistical physics, including but not restricted to the theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena. He was the Horace White Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics at Cornell University. Later he moved to the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, where he was University System of Maryland Regents Professor, a Distinguished University Professor and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David J. Thouless</span> British physicist (1934–2019)

David James Thouless was a British condensed-matter physicist. He was the winner of the 1990 Wolf Prize and a laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.

Boris Leonidovich Altshuler is a professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University. His specialty is theoretical condensed matter physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giorgio Parisi</span> Italian physicist (born 1948)

Giorgio Parisi is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems. His best known contributions are the QCD evolution equations for parton densities, obtained with Guido Altarelli, known as the Altarelli–Parisi or DGLAP equations, the exact solution of the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model of spin glasses, the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation describing dynamic scaling of growing interfaces, and the study of whirling flocks of birds. He was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe for groundbreaking contributions to theory of complex systems, in particular "for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales".

Gordon Alan Baym is an American theoretical physicist.

Valery Leonidovich Pokrovsky is a Soviet and Russian physicist. He is a member of the Landau Institute in Chernogolovka near Moscow in Russia and a Distinguished Professor of Theoretical Physics and holder of the William R. Thurman ’58 Chair in Physics at Texas A&M University. He has twice received the Landau Prize of the Soviet Academy of Science, in 1984 and in 2018.

Alexander Borisovich Zamolodchikov is a Russian physicist, known for his contributions to conformal field theory, statistical mechanics, string theory and condensed matter physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Michael Kosterlitz</span> British physicist

John Michael Kosterlitz is a Scottish-American physicist. He is a professor of physics at Brown University and the son of biochemist Hans Kosterlitz. He was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics along with David Thouless and Duncan Haldane for work on condensed matter physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subir Sachdev</span> Indian physicist

Subir Sachdev is Herchel Smith Professor of Physics at Harvard University specializing in condensed matter. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2014, received the Lars Onsager Prize from the American Physical Society and the Dirac Medal from the ICTP in 2018, and was elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society ForMemRS in 2023. He was a co-editor of the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics 2017–2019, and is Editor-in-Chief of Reports on Progress in Physics 2022-.

Peter Hänggi is a theoretical physicist from Switzerland, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Augsburg. He is best known for his original works on Brownian motion and the Brownian motor concept, stochastic resonance and dissipative systems. Other topics include, driven quantum tunneling, such as the discovery of coherent destruction of tunneling (CDT), phononics, relativistic statistical mechanics and the foundations of classical and quantum thermodynamics.

John Lawrence CardyFRS is a British–American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, and in particular for research on critical phenomena and two-dimensional conformal field theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Robert Nelson</span> American physicist (born 1951)

David R. Nelson is an American physicist, and Arthur K. Solomon Professor of Biophysics, at Harvard University.

Pierre Hohenberg was a French-American theoretical physicist, who worked primarily on statistical mechanics.

Steven H. Simon is an American theoretical physics professor at Oxford University and professorial fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. From 2000 to 2008 he was the director of theoretical physics research at Bell Laboratories. He has served on the UK EPSRC Physical Sciences Strategic Advisory Board. He is known for his work on topological phases of matter, topological quantum computing, and fractional quantum Hall effect. He is a co-author of a highly cited review on these subjects. He has also written many papers in the field of information theory. He is the author of a popular introductory book on solid state physics entitled The Oxford Solid State Basics as well as a more recent book entitled Topological Quantum. He is married to political science professor Janina Dill.

Ian Keith Affleck was a Canadian physicist specializing in condensed matter physics. He was Killam University Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture</span> Annual lecture in Stockholm, Sweden

Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal is a colloquium-style distinguished lecture that takes place at AlbaNova University Center in Stockholm on annual basis. The lecture commemorates Lise Meitner, who spent a substantial part of her career in Stockholm. AlbaNova University Center hosts physics departments of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University and Nordita.

David Alan Huse is an American theoretical physicist, specializing in statistical physics and condensed matter physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara A. Jones</span> American physicist

Barbara A. Jones was an American physicist who worked for IBM Research in San Jose, California, in the Quantum Applications group of IBM Quantum. Her research involved the quantum dynamics of magnetic systems.

References

  1. 1 2 "Halperin, Bertrand I." American Institute of Physics . Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  2. 1 2 Halperin, Bertrand I. (10 March 2021). "A Career in Physics". Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics. 12 (1): 15–28. Bibcode:2021ARCMP..12...15H. doi: 10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-060120-092219 . ISSN   1947-5454. S2CID   228892037.
  3. 1 2 "2019 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research Awarded to Bertrand I. Halperin". APS News. 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2019. Among his many honors, Halperin is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to his APS awards, he received the Dannie Heineman Prize of the Göttingen Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Lars Onsager Lecture and Medal of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Lise Meitner Lecture and Medal, and the Wolf Prize in Physics.
  4. "APS Fellows Archive". APS. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  5. "Bertrand Israel Halperin". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  6. "Bertrand Halperin". NAS Member Directory. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  7. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  8. "2001 Lars Onsager Prize Recipient". APS Physics. Retrieved January 7, 2019. For his wide-ranging contributions to statistical physics and quantum fluids, especially the elucidation of the quantum Hall effect and other low-dimensional electronic phenomena; and for his exemplary leadership in bringing theory to bear on the understanding of experiments.
  9. Sa'ar, Relly (January 15, 2003). "Multinational Winners of Wolf Prizes for Mathematics, Physics and Agriculture". Haaretz. Retrieved January 7, 2019. This year's Wolf Prize for physics will be awarded to Professor Bertrand Halperin of Harvard University and Professor Anthony Leggett of Illinois University. The jury said the prize was in recognition of the researchers' contribution to the field of condensed matter theory. Halperin, 61, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has been a professor at Harvard since 1976.
  10. "LiseMeitnerLecture". Archived from the original on 2016-06-11. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  11. "2019 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research Recipient: Bertrand I. Halperin"
Academic offices
Preceded by Hollis Chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
1992–present
Succeeded by
current incumbent