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Alexander Markovich Polyakov (; born 27 September 1945) is a Russian theoretical
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
, formerly at the Landau Institute in Moscow and, since 1989, at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
, where he is the
Joseph Henry Joseph Henry (December 17, 1797– May 13, 1878) was an American physicist and inventor who served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor ...
Professor of Physics Emeritus.


Important discoveries

Polyakov is known for a number of fundamental contributions to
quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
, 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. His
path integral formulation The path integral formulation is a description in quantum mechanics that generalizes the stationary action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique classical trajectory for a system with a sum, or ...
of string theory 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" written with Alexander Belavin and Alexander Zamolodchikov laid down the foundations of two-dimensional conformal field theory and has classic status. Polyakov also played an important role in elucidating the conceptual framework behind
renormalization Renormalization is a collection of techniques in quantum field theory, statistical field theory, and the theory of self-similar geometric structures, that is used to treat infinities arising in calculated quantities by altering values of the ...
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 In string theory, D-branes, short for Dirichlet membrane, are a class of extended objects upon which open string (physics), strings can end with Dirichlet boundary conditions, after which they are named. D-branes are typically classified by their ...
. 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 In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the Mass generation, generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles ...
, slightly after but independently from the publications of Peter Higgs and others. The paper was delayed by the Editorial Office of JETP, and was published only in 1966.


Honors and awards

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 The Max Planck Medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions ...
. Polyakov was elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1984, to the
French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
in 1998 and the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
(NAS) in 2005.


Political positions

In February-March 2022, he signed an open letter by Russian scientists condemning the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, and another open letter by Breakthrough Prize laureates with the same message.An open letter from Breakthrough Prize laureates
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Famous quotes

“''The garbage of the past often becomes the treasure of the present (and vice versa).''”
“''There are no tables for path integrals.''” (quoted in )
“''I wanted to learn about elementary particles by studying boiling water.''” (paraphrased in )


See also

* Polyakov action * 't Hooft–Polyakov monopole * Belavin–Polyakov–Schwarz–Tyupkin instantons * QCD vacuum *
Conformal bootstrap The conformal bootstrap is a non-perturbative mathematical method to constrain and solve Conformal field theory, conformal field theories, i.e. models of particle physics or statistical physics that exhibit similar properties at different levels of ...
* Liouville theory * AdS/CFT correspondence


References


External links


Dirac Medal 1986 citationDepartmental homepage at Princeton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polyakov, Alexander Markovich American string theorists Soviet physicists 20th-century American physicists Russian physicists Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Princeton University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Winners of the Max Planck Medal Lorentz Medal winners Living people 1945 births Scientists from Moscow Russian string theorists Russian theoretical physicists Russian scientists