Thomas L. Curtright (born 1948) is a

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 ...

at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...

. He did

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

work in physics at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

(B.S., M.S., 1970), and graduate work at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

(Ph.D., 1977) under the supervision of

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

. He has made numerous influential contributions in

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

and

mathematical physics Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the de ...

, notably in supercurrent anomalies, higher-spin fields ( Curtright field), quantum Liouville theory, geometrostatic sigma models, quantum algebras, and

deformation quantization In mathematics and physics, deformation quantization roughly amounts to finding a (quantum) algebra whose classical limit is a given (classical) algebra such as a Lie algebra or a Poisson algebra. In physics Intuitively, a deformation of a math ...

. Curtright is a Fellow 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 ...

(1998), a co-recipient (with Charles Thorn) of the SESAPS Jesse W. Beams Award (2005), a recipient of the SESAPS Francis G. Slack Award (2024), a

Cooper Fellow (2008), and a recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award from the University's Senate (2008). He is also the recipient of Distinguished Alumni Awards from the Department of Physics and Astronomy (2021) and from the College of Arts and Science (2022), University of Missouri at Columbia. He has co-edited and co-authored several books, notably on

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

phase space The phase space of a physical system is the set of all possible physical states of the system when described by a given parameterization. Each possible state corresponds uniquely to a point in the phase space. For mechanical systems, the p ...

.Thomas L Curtright, David B Fairlie, Cosmas K Zachos, ''A Concise Treatise on Quantum Mechanics in Phase Space'', (World Scientific, Singapore, 2014)

References

External links

Professor Curtright's website at the University of Miami

Caltech PhD dissertation on stability and supersymmetry
(publicly available; supervised by

).
ORCID profile
21st-century American physicists Living people Fellows of the American Physical Society 1948 births American theoretical physicists California Institute of Technology alumni University of Missouri alumni Scientists from Missouri American mathematical physicists People from Paris, Missouri University of Missouri physicists {{US-physicist-stub