Aleksandr Abramovich Belavin (born August 28, 1942, Gorky) is a Russian theoretical physicist, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2011), and a specialist in quantum field theory and the theory of relativistic quantum strings. He was educated in Gorky and Moscow, and a significant part of his scientific career is connected with a Nizhny Novgorod university.[1]

Education and early scientific career

From 1960 to 1964, Belavin studied at Gorky State University, after which he transferred to MEPhI, from which he graduated in 1967. In 1970 he defended his candidate's dissertation, "Some Problems in the Theory of Weak Interactions of Elementary Particles," in the graduate program at MEPhI; his scientific advisor was I. Yu. Kobzarev. After completing graduate school, he returned to Gorky University, where he worked until 1976.[1]

Scientific work

Since 1976, Belavin has worked at the L. D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Chernogolovka); since 2004 he has been a chief researcher and head of the quantum field theory sector. He is also a professor at MIPT and the Independent University of Moscow, and a staff member of the A. A. Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems.[1][2]

His doctoral dissertation was defended in 1977 on the topic "Gauge Invariance, Instantons, and the Problem of Quark Confinement." Belavin discovered instantons — a special type of vacuum fluctuation in which a strong gluon field spontaneously flares up and dies away — in gauge and chiral quantum field theory. These results led to an explanation of the mass of the η-meson and to a solution of the problem of color confinement in Seiberg–Witten theory. He also solved the bootstrap equations of factorized scattering theory in two-dimensional relativistic systems and created two-dimensional conformal field theory based on the representation theory of the Virasoro algebra, which became a foundation of modern string theory. His study of the analytic properties of scattering amplitudes led to the discovery of holomorphy properties (the Belavin–Knizhnik theorem), which make it possible to determine uniquely the form of the Veneziano string amplitudes. In addition, Belavin developed a method for calculating the effective field theory that arises from the compactification of six of the ten dimensions of string theory on Calabi–Yau manifolds.[1]

In the early 1990s he collaborated actively with Aleksandr Men; after Men's death, he returned to the study of physics.[1]

Recognition

Belavin is a laureate of the A. Humboldt Prize (2005), the I. Ya. Pomeranchuk Prize (2007), the American Physical Society's Lars Onsager Prize (2011), and the L. D. Landau Medal (2023). In 2021 he signed an open letter from the scientific community in defense of Sergey Zuev, rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, addressed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation.[1][3]

Sources

  1. eduspb.com — BELAVIN Alexander Abramovich — Association of Teachers of Saint Petersburg
  2. experts.itp.ac.ru — Corpus expertov
  3. vogazeta.ru — Scientists Appeal in an Open Letter to Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov in Defense of Shaninka Rector Sergey Zuev — Education News
  4. gpad.ac.ru
  5. sadovski.iep.uran.ru
  6. search.rsl.ru — Belavin, Alexander Abramovich. — Inverse scattering problem and the algebro-geometric construction of instantons [Text] : Preprint / A.A. Belavin.