Field of research | Theoretical physics |
---|---|
Location | Menlo Park, California, United States |
Affiliations | Stanford University |
Operating agency | SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory |
The SLAC Theory Group is the hub of theoretical particle physics research at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. It is a subdivision of the Elementary Particle Physics (EPP) Division at SLAC. [1]
The group has a diverse research program, specializing in areas of quantum field theory, beyond the standard model physics, dark matter, neutrinos, and collider phenomenology.
The group is currently led by 9 faculty members, and has a dozen postdoctoral researchers and students at any given time. [2]
Notable physicists who were students or postdoctoral researchers in the SLAC Theory Group include Nima Arkani-Hamed, Thomas Appelquist, Mirjam Cvetic, Michael Dine, John Ellis, Rouven Essig, Edward Farhi, Steven Frautschi, Joshua Frieman, Roscoe Giles, Yuval Grossman, Jack F. Gunion, Alan Guth, Howard Haber, Claude Itzykson, Robert Jaffe, David E. Kaplan, Igor Klebanov, Peter Lepage, Christopher Llewellyn Smith, Kirill Melnikov, Stephen Parke, Maxim Perelstein, Joel Primack, Joseph Polchinski, Davison Soper, Henry Tye, Mark Wise, and Tung-Mow Yan. [2]
Past and present members of the SLAC Theory Group have received a total of at least 3 Breakthrough in Fundamental Physics Prizes ($3 million USD prize), 10 Sakurai Prizes ($10,000 USD), 5 Dirac Medals ($5,000 USD), 4 New Horizons in Physics Prizes ($100,000 USD), and 2 Gribov Medals ($5,000 USD).
Current and former faculty members in the SLAC Theory Group include: [2]
Juan Martín Maldacena is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to the foundations of string theory and quantum gravity. His most famous discovery is the AdS/CFT correspondence, a realization of the holographic principle in string theory.
Nima Arkani-Hamed is an American-Canadian theoretical physicist of Iranian descent, with interests in high-energy physics, quantum field theory, string theory, cosmology and collider physics. Arkani-Hamed is a member of the permanent faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is also director of the Carl P. Feinberg Cross-Disciplinary Program in Innovation at the Institute and director of The Center for Future High Energy Physics (CFHEP) in Beijing, China.
Jogesh C. Pati is an Indian-American theoretical physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Sidney David Drell was an American theoretical physicist and arms control expert.
Curtis Gove Callan Jr. is an American theoretical physicist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He has conducted research in gauge theory, string theory, instantons, black holes, strong interactions, and many other topics. He was awarded the Sakurai Prize in 2000 and the Dirac Medal in 2004.
Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn is an Australian-born particle physicist and educator who has made major contributions to both fields. Her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei–Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry of nature and contributions to the search for a unified theory for the three types of particle interactions. As Chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences, Quinn led the effort that produced A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas—the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by many states. Her honours include the Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics, the Oskar Klein Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, appointment as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics from the American Physical Society, the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics from the American Institute of Physics, the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute, and the 2023 Harvey Prize from Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology.
The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics (SITP) is a research institute within the Physics Department at Stanford University. Led by 16 physics faculty members, the institute conducts research in high energy and condensed matter theoretical physics.
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".
Luciano Maiani is a Sammarinese physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and John Iliopoulos.
John (Jean) Iliopoulos is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and Luciano Maiani. Iliopoulos is also known for demonstrating the cancellation of anomalies in the Standard model. He is further known for the Fayet-Iliopoulos D-term formula, which was introduced in 1974. He is currently an honorary member of Laboratory of theoretical physics of École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
Richard Keith Ellis, is a British theoretical physicist, working at the University of Durham, and a leading authority on perturbative quantum chromodynamics and collider phenomenology.
The Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) is an organized research unit within the University of California system focused on theoretical and experimental high-energy physics and astrophysics.
James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken was an American theoretical physicist. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954, received a BS in physics from MIT in 1956, and obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 1959. Bjorken was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the fall of 1962. He was also emeritus professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and was a member of the Theory Department of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (1979–1989).
Stanley J. Brodsky is an American theoretical physicist and emeritus professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University.
The William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute is a research institute in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering. FTPI was largely the work of physics Professor Emeritus, Stephen Gasiorowicz and university alumnus and Twin Cities real-estate developer William I. Fine. The institute officially came into existence in January 1987. FTPI faculty consists of six permanent members: Andrey V. Chubukov, Alex Kamenev, Keith Olive, Maxim Pospelov, Mikhail Shifman, and Boris Shklovskii. The institute has on Oversight Committee consisting of ten members. The Oversight Committee is the board of directors that make decisions concerning the staffing and budgeting of the institute.
Bryan Ronald Webber, FRS, FInstP is a British physicist and academic. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1973 to 2010, and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge from 1999 to 2010. He has been awarded the Dirac Medal by the Institute of Physics, the Sakurai Prize by the American Physical Society and the High Energy and Particle Physics Prize by the European Physical Society.
Freddy Alexander Cachazo is a Venezuelan-born theoretical physicist who holds the Gluskin Sheff Freeman Dyson Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Lance Jenkins Dixon is an American theoretical particle physicist. He is a professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) at Stanford University.
The Gribov Medal is a prize awarded every two years since 2001 by the European Physical Society for work in theoretical elementary particle physics or quantum field theory. It is awarded to younger physicists and is named after Vladimir Naumovich Gribov.
Bernhard Mistlberger is an Austrian theoretical particle physicist known for his significant work in the area of quantum field theory. He is known for multi-loop calculations in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), including the first high-precision theoretical predictions of Higgs and vector boson production at the Large Hadron Collider.