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Pomeranchuk Prize Winners 2007
According to the decision of the International Pomeranchuk Prize Committee the Pomeranchuk Prize for 2007 is
awarded to Alexander Belavin (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow) and Yoichiro Nambu (Enrico
Fermi Institute, University of Chicago
The Prize is awarded to Alexander Belavin for remarkable achievements in
quantum field theory, such as instanton solutions in QCD, and deep
insights in two-dimensional conformal string theory.
A.A. Belavin is a Professor at L.D. Landau Institute for Theoretical
Physics.
Among his most considerable achievements there is a discovery of BPST
(Belavin-Polyakov-Shvarts-Tyupkin) instantons in non-Abelian gauge theory
in 1975. This provided a qualitative explanation of the quark confinement
phenomena and U(1)-problem and initiated a new direction in Quantum Field
Theory.
In 1973 A. Belavin in collaboration with G.Avdeeva discovered a
non-trivial zero of Gell-Mann - Low and a scaling regime in a guage field
theory, proving a possibility of a new strong coupling regime of
non-perturbative nature.
Belavin found a broad class of new exact S-matrices, (Belavin's S
matrices), and proposed corresponding exactly solvable models in
two-dimensional relativistic theories in 1981
In the celebrated BPZ (Belavin-Polyakov-Zamolodchikov) paper of 1984 a
formulation of two-dimensional conformal field theories was given. The
conformal field theory plays a fundamental role in a modern string theory
at critical and non-critical space-time dimensions.
The discovery by A.A. Belavin and V.G. Knizhnik of a holomorphic property
(Belavin-Knizhnik's theorem) for the dual amplitudes in string theory in
1986 allowed working out explicit expressions for amplitudes of critical
strings up to the fourth order.
Most recent development of conformal field theory and Liouville gravity
theory includes exact expressions for multiparticle Veneziano amplitudes
in Polyakov's string (in collaboration with A. Zamolodchikov).
The Prize is awarded to Yoichiro Nambu for outstanding contributions to
elementary particle physics, including spontaneous symmetry breaking,
colored gluons and string theory, that have had such a major impact on our
understanding of these key concepts for a number of decades.
Yoichiro Nambu is Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor
Emeritus, Dept. of Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute. He received his
Doctor of Science degree from the University of Tokyo in 1952. In 1952, he
was invited to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He became
Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago in 1958, where, from
1974 to 1977, he was also Chairman of the Department of Physics.
Nambu has made many important contributions to the development of
elementary particle theory. He is famous for having proposed the "color
charge" of quantum chromodynamics, for having done early work on
spontaneous symmetry breaking in particle physics, and for having
discovered that the dual resonance model could be explained as a quantum
mechanical theory of strings. He is accounted as one of the founders of
string theory.
The spontaneous symmetry breaking model of hadron mass generation was
developed by Nambu, together with Jona-Lasinio. This model is based on an
analogy with the BCS theory of superconductivity. The modern version of
the N(ambu)--J(ona)-L(asinio) Model is a low energy approximation to
Quantum Chromodynamics. It also gives important insight into the
nucleon-nucleon force, both in free space and in nuclei. Some features of
nuclei, such as the approximate validity of the interacting boson model,
appear to be due to a manifestation of spontaneous symmetry breaking due
to the nuclear pairing interaction. The NJL model was originally proposed
around 1960, before it was realized that nucleons are made up of three
quarks. However, Nambu. with Han, did some pioneering work along these
lines concerning gluons.
Nambu and Han generalized this idea to strong interactions, and proposed
that the force between quarks is carried by gluons. In the original
version of Nambu's work, the quarks were taken to have integral charges,
but that was later corrected by Gell-Mann who introduced fractional
charges.
The Nambu-Goto action in string theory is named after Nambu and Tetsuo
Goto. Also, massless bosons arising in field theories with spontaneous
symmetry breaking are sometimes referred to as Nambu-Goldstone bosons
Y. Nambu has won numerous honors and awards including the
J. Robert Oppenheimer Prize, the U.S.'s National Medal of Science, Japan's
Order of Culture, the Planck Medal, the Wolf Prize, the Franklin Medal,
the Dirac Medal and the Sakurai Prize.
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