Gordon W. Semenoff

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Gordon Walter Semenoff (born July 11, 1953 in Pincher Creek , Alberta ) is a Canadian theoretical physicist.

Semenoff graduated from the University of Alberta with a bachelor's degree in 1976 and a PhD in 1981. He was a post-doctoral student at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . In 1983 he became a University Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia , where he received a full professorship in 1990.

In 1984/1985 and 2000 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study , 1989 (Nordita Professor), 1999 and 2012 at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen (2012 as Velux Visiting Professor), 2001 and 2011 at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, 2005/06 at IHES and in 2007 and 2012 at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. In 1986 he was visiting professor at the ETH Zurich and in 1989 at the University of Hokkaidō . He was visiting scholar at Uppsala University (with Antti Niemi) and Tours University (also with Niemi).

In 1983 he and Antti Juhani Niemi discovered the quantum mechanical parity violation (parity anomaly) of gauge theories with fermions in odd dimensions of space-time (and with an odd dual Coxeter number of the gauge group). A. Norman Redlich managed this independently. He made pioneering contributions to the theory of graphene (electronic quasiparticle excitations as effectively massless fermions described by the Dirac equation), contributions to thermal quantum field theory, to the application of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem in quantum field theory (to explain fractional fermion numbers of topological solitons) and dualities of String theories and strongly coupled gauge field theories as well as with quantum gravity.

In 2000 he received the CAP-CRM Prize . He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada (2000) and holder of the Order of Canada (2012). In 2012 he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and in 1989 the Killam Research Prize and the Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. In 2012 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Association of Physicists. In 2011 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lethbridge.

Fonts (selection)

Except for the works cited in the footnotes.

  • with AJ Niemi: Finite Temperature Quantum Field Theory in Minkowski Space, Annals of Physics, Volume 152, 1984, p. 105
  • with Antti Niemi: Thermodynamic Calculations in Relativistic Finite Temperature Quantum Field Theories, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 230, 1984, p. 181
  • Real Time Feynman Rules For Gauge Theories With Fermions At Finite Temperature And Density, Zeitschrift für Physik C, Volume 29, 1985, p. 371
  • with Niemi: Quantum holonomy and the chiral gauge anomaly, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 55, 1985, p. 927
  • with RL Kobes: Discontinuities of Green Functions in Field Theory at Finite Temperature and Density, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 260, 1985, pp. 714-746, Part 2, Nucl. Phys. B, Vol. 272, 1986, pp. 329-364
  • with Antti Niemi: Fermion Number Fractionization in Quantum Field Theory, Physics Reports, Volume 135, 1986, p. 99
  • Canonical quantum field theory with exotic statistics, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 61, 1988, p. 517
  • with P. Sodano: Exotic spin and statistics in (2+ 1) -dimensional canonical quantum field theory, Nucl. Phys. B, Volume 328, 1989, pp. 753-776
  • with JK Erickson, K. Zarembo: Wilson loops in N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, JK Erickson, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 582, 2000, pp. 155-175, Arxiv
  • with C. Kristjansen, J. Plefka, M. Staudacher: A New double scaling limit of N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory and PP wave strings, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 643, 2002, pp. 3-30, Arxiv
  • Lectures on the holographic duality of gauge fields and strings, Les Houches 2006, Arxiv

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Niemi, Semenoff, Axial-Anomaly-Induced Fermion Fractionization and Effective Gauge-Theory Actions in Odd-Dimensional Space-Times, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 51, 1983, p. 2077, Abstract |
  2. ↑ Redlich, Gauge Noninvariance and Parity Nonconservation of Three-Dimensional Fermions, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 52, 1984, p. 18, Abstract , Redlich, Parity violation and gauge noninvariance of the effective gauge field action in three dimensions, Phys. Rev. D, Vol. 29, 1984, p. 2366
  3. ↑ Semenoff, Condensed Matter Simulation Of A Three-Dimensional Anomaly, Physical Review Letters, vol 53, 1984, S. 2449
  4. ↑ This was done independently by DP DiVincenzo, EJ Mele, Self-consistent effective-mass theory for intralayer screening in graphite intercalation compounds, Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 29, 1984, p. 1685
personal data
SURNAME Semenoff, Gordon W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Semenoff, Gordon Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Pincher Creek