Alan Harold Luther (born December 14, 1940) is an American physicist, specializing in condensed matter physics.

Education and career

Luther graduated in electrical engineering from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) with a B.S. in 1962 and an M.S. in 1963. In 1967 he graduated from the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

with a Ph.D. in physics under the supervision of Richard Allan Ferrell. As a postdoc Luther was from 1967 to 1969 at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

and from 1969 to 1971 at

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

. At

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

he was from 1971 to 1973 an assistant professor and from 1973 to 1976 an associate professor. At

Nordita The Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, or NORDITA, or Nordita (), is an international organisation for research in theoretical physics. It was established as Nordisk Institut for Teoretisk Atomfysik in 1957 by Niels Bohr and the Swedish ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

he was from 1976 a full professor from 1976 until his retirement as professor emeritus. In 1974 he found, with Victor Emery, exact solutions for one-dimensional electron gas models (Luther–Emery liquids). Luther's research also deals with boson-fermion duality,

conformal field theories A conformal field theory (CFT) is a quantum field theory that is invariant under conformal transformations. In two dimensions, there is an infinite-dimensional algebra of local conformal transformations, and conformal field theories can sometime ...

, the generalized

Bethe ansatz In physics, the Bethe ansatz is an ansatz for finding the exact wavefunctions of certain quantum many-body models, most commonly for one-dimensional lattice models. It was first used by Hans Bethe in 1931 to find the exact eigenvalues and eigenv ...

, spin chains and two-dimensional models of statistical mechanics, strongly correlated electron systems in two dimensions, and

high-temperature superconductivity High-temperature superconductivity (high-c or HTS) is superconductivity in materials with a critical temperature (the temperature below which the material behaves as a superconductor) above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. They are "high- ...

. For the academic year 1975–1976 he was a Sloan Research Fellow. (Search on "Luther".) In 2001 he received (with Victor Emery) the

Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize The Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize is an annual award given by the American Physical Society "to recognize and encourage outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions to condensed matter physics." It was endowed by AT&T Bell Labor ...

for "fundamental contribution to the theory of interacting electrons in one dimension."

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Books

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luther, Alan Harold 1940 births Living people 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists American theoretical physicists American condensed matter physicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University System of Maryland alumni Harvard University faculty Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners