Mikhail A. Shifman

Mikhail "Misha" Arkadyevich Shifman (; born 4 April 1949) is a theoretical physicist (high energy physics), formerly at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Ida Cohen Fine Professor of Theoretical Physics, William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Minnesota.

Scientific contributions

Shifman is known for a number of basic contributions to quantum chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions, and to understanding of supersymmetric gauge dynamics. The most important results due to M. Shifman are diverse and include (i) the discovery of the penguin mechanism in the flavor-changing weak decays (1974); (ii) introduction of the gluon condensate and development of the SVZ sum rules relating properties of the low-lying hadronic states to the vacuum condensates (1979); (iii) introduction of the invisible (aka KSVZ) axion (1980) (iv) first exact results in supersymmetric Yang–Mills theories (NSVZ beta function, gluino condensate,1983–1988); (v) heavy quark theory based on the operator product expansion (1985–1995); (vi) critical domain walls (D-brane analogs) in super-Yang-Mills (1996); (vii) non-perturbative (exact) planar equivalence between super-Yang–Mills and orientifold non-supersymmetric theories (2003); (viii) non-Abelian flux tubes and confined monopoles (2004 till present). His paper with A. Vainshtein and Zakharov on the SVZ sum rules is among the all-time top cited papers in high-energy physics.

Honors and awards

Mikhail Shifman received the Alexander-von-Humboldt Award in 1993, the Sakurai Prize in 1999, the Ida Cohen Fine Chair in Theoretical Physics and the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize in 2006; he is the 2007 laureate of the Blaise Pascal Chair, 2013 Pomeranchuk Prize and he was awarded the 2016 Dirac Medal and Prize of the ICTP. In May 2018, M. Shifman was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences. 2022: Fulbright Distinguished Scholar. In 2024, Mikhail Shifman was appointed as the University of Minnesota Regents Professor. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Political positions

In February-March 2022, he signed two open letters by Russian scientists condemning the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Selected books

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See also

* KSVZ axion (Kim–Shifman–Vainshtein–Zakharov axion model)
* SVZ sum rules (Shifman–Vainshtein–Zakharov sum rules)
* Penguin mechanism
*QCD vacuum
* NSVZ beta function
* Gluon condensation
*Gluino condensation
*Critical (BPS saturated) domain walls in super-Yang–Mills
*Non-Abelian flux tubes in super-Yang–Mills
* Planar equivalence in non-Abelian orientifold theories

References

External links

1999 Sakurai Prize citation2006 Lilienfeld Prize citation2007 Chaires Blaise Pascal

Shifman homepage at the University of MinnesotaFTPI homepage at the University of Minnesota2016 Dirac Medal citation
*Interview of Mikhail Shifman by David Zierler on July 7, 2021, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA
www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/47523

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shifman, Mikhail A.
1949 births
Living people
21st-century American physicists
20th-century American Jews
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Russian physicists
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics alumni
University of Minnesota faculty
Scientists from Riga
American theoretical physicists
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
21st-century American Jews
Jewish American physicists