Michael Dine (born 12 August 1953) is an American theoretical physicist, specializing in

elementary particle In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. The Standard Model presently recognizes seventeen distinct particles—twelve fermions and five bosons. As a c ...

physics,

supersymmetry Supersymmetry is a Theory, theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between Particle physics, particles with integer Spin (physics), spin (''bosons'') and particles with half-integer spin (''fermions''). It propo ...

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and intera ...

, and

physics beyond the Standard Model Physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) refers to the theoretical developments needed to explain the deficiencies of the Standard Model, such as the inability to explain the fundamental parameters of the standard model, the strong CP problem, neut ...

Education and career

Dine received in 1974 a bachelor's degree from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

and in 1978 a Ph.D. under

Thomas Appelquist Thomas William Appelquist is a theoretical particle physicist who is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Yale University. He received his bachelor's degree from Illinois Benedictine College and his Ph.D. in 1968 from Cornell University ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

with thesis ''Interactions of Heavy Quarks in Quantum Chromodynamics''. He did research at

SLAC SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, United States. Founded in 1962, the laboratory is now sponsored ...

and was for a number of years at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

and the ''Henry Semat'' Professor at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

. He is currently a professor at Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) of the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

. Dine was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

for the academic year 2006–2007 and Sloan Fellow in 1986. He is a fellow of

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 ...

and in 2010 he was elected a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. He is a recipient of the 2018

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 ...

. He was elected a member of the

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 ...

in April 2019.

Research

Dine works on the "phenomenology" (''i.e.'' experimentally testable models for low energy) of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model and of superstring theory. In particular, he does research on

supersymmetry breaking In particle physics, supersymmetry breaking or SUSY breaking is a process via which a seemingly non- supersymmetric physics emerges from a supersymmetric theory. Assuming a breaking of supersymmetry is a necessary step to reconcile supersymmetry wi ...

. Dine investigated in the 1980s modifications of

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 ...

with dynamical supersymmetry breaking (DSB), partly with Ian Affleck and Nathan Seiberg. With

Willy Fischler Willy Fischler (born 1949 in Antwerp, Belgium) is a theoretical physicist. He is the Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is affiliated with the Weinberg theory group. He is als ...

and Mark Srednicki, Dine published in 1981 a theory of supersymmetric

technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...

, using gauge bosons and their superpartners, that provided a model of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Dine with Affleck and Seiberg developed a general theory of dynamical supersymmetry breaking in four-dimensional spacetime and with Ann Nelson, Yuri Shirman, and Yosef Nir developed new models of gauge-mediated dynamical supersymmetry breaking. With Fischler and Srednicki he developed an "Invisible

Axion An axion () is a hypothetical elementary particle originally theorized in 1978 independently by Frank Wilczek and Steven Weinberg as the Goldstone boson of Peccei–Quinn theory, which had been proposed in 1977 to solve the strong CP problem ...

" model known as the DFSZ (Dine–Fischler–Srednicki–Zhitnisky) model. Later Dine with Fischler also elaborated this theory and its cosmological implications (the axion is a candidate for a

dark matter In astronomy, dark matter is an invisible and hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is implied by gravity, gravitational effects that cannot be explained by general relat ...

particle). To explain the matter/antimatter imbalance in the universe, Dine and Ian Affeck proposed the Affleck–Dine mechanism. The Affleck–Dine mechanism might provide a candidate for a dark matter particle, namely a particular type of

Q-ball In theoretical physics, Q-ball is a type of non-topological soliton. A soliton is a localized field configuration that is stable—it cannot spread out and dissipate. In the case of a non-topological soliton, the stability is guaranteed by a co ...

. Dine investigated with

Ryan Rohm Ryan Milton Rohm (born 22 December 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina) is an American string theorist. He is one of four physicists known as the Princeton string quartet, and is responsible for the development of heterotic string theory along with D ...

, Nathan Seiberg and Edward Witten gluino condensation in string theory, with Witten and Seiberg the implications of Fayet–Iliopoulos D-terms for vacuum destabilization, and with X. G. Wen, Seiberg and Witten the

non-perturbative In mathematics and physics, a non-perturbative function (mathematics), function or process is one that cannot be described by perturbation theory. An example is the function : f(x) = e^, which does not equal its own Taylor series in any neighbo ...

effects (instantons) on the

worldsheet In string theory, a worldsheet is a two-dimensional manifold which describes the embedding of a string in spacetime. The term was coined by Leonard Susskind as a direct generalization of the world line concept for a point particle in special an ...

of strings. He has done extensive research on applications of superstring theory to cosmology.

Selected publications

as author: * as editor: * * with Thomas Banks &

Subir Sachdev Subir Sachdev is Herchel Smith Professor of physics at Harvard University specializing in condensed matter. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2014, received the Lars Onsager Prize from the American Physical Society and ...

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Michael Dine on 14 April 2021, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & ArchivesMichael Dine's homepage, scipp.ucsc.edu
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dine, Michael 1953 births Living people Scientists from Cincinnati Johns Hopkins University alumni Yale University alumni City College of New York faculty University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Sloan Research Fellows Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American string theorists J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients