Davison "Dave" Eugene Soper (21 March 1943,

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

) is an American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

specializing in

high energy physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the stu ...

Education and career

Soper received his bachelor's degree in 1965 from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

and his PhD in 1971 under

James Bjorken James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken (June 22, 1934 – August 6, 2024) 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 ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he worked with

John Kogut John Benjamin Kogut (6 March 1945) is an American theoretical physicist, specializing in high energy physics. Kogut was born in Brooklyn in 1945. Kogut received in 1971 his PhD from Stanford University under James Bjorken with thesis ''Quantum ...

. Soper was from 1971 to 1973 an instructor and from 1973 to 1977 an assistant professor 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 ...

. He was appointed in 1977–80 an assistant professor, in 1980–83 an associate professor, and from 1983 to the present a professor at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

, where from 2004 to 2007 he was chair of the physics department. His doctoral dissertation on ''Null Plane Field Theory'' dealt with the theory of high energy scattering processes in the

parton model In particle physics, the parton model is a model of hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, proposed by Richard Feynman. It is useful for interpreting the cascades of radiation (a parton shower) produced from quantum chromodynamics (QCD) processes ...

. With

George Sterman George Franklin Sterman (born June 2, 1946) is an American theoretical physicist and the Director of the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University where he holds the rank Distinguished Professor. Background George S ...

and John C. Collins, he proved a factorization theorem in perturbative

quantum chromodynamics In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type of ...

(QCD). Soper is a member of the "Coordinated Theoretical-Experimental Project on QCD“ (CTEQ), whose co-spokesperson he was from 2001 to 2004. He was on the editorial board of ''

Physical Review Letters ''Physical Review Letters'' (''PRL''), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics ...

'' and ''

Physical Review D Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, clinical examination, or medical checkup, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a Disease, medical co ...

''.

Honors

In 2009 Soper received with R. Keith Ellis and John C. Collins the

Sakurai Prize The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, also commonly referred to as just the Sakurai Prize, is a prize awarded by the American Physical Society. It is presented annually at the Society's April meeting and honors "outstanding a ...

of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010. He was cited "For seminal work in Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics, especially proving theorems on factorization which play a crucial role in interpreting high energy particle collisions."

Selected works

* ''Classical Field Theory''. Dover Publ., Mineola, NY 2008, (originally published by Wiley, New York 1976).

References

External links

D.E. Soper on InSPIRE databasearXiv.org preprints for D. Sopersearch on author Davison Soper
from

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

Online notes from a two quarter course in quantum field theory taught by D. E. Soper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soper, Davison 1943 births Living people Scientists from Milwaukee 21st-century American physicists American theoretical physicists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Physical Society J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients Amherst College alumni Stanford University alumni University of Oregon faculty