Joshua Zak

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Joshua Zak (* 1929 in Wilno , Poland ) is an Israeli theoretical physicist. He is a professor emeritus at the Technion .

Zak first attended a Hebrew school in Vilnius. When Vilnius was taken over by the Soviet Union as a result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact , teaching in Hebrew was no longer permitted and Zak switched to Yiddish . When the Germans invaded in 1941, he lived in the Vilnius ghetto until 1943 and was sent to a labor camp when he was 15. When he was 16, he was taken to the Stutthof concentration camp . The advance of the Red Army in early 1945 prompted the evacuation of the camp and the prisoners sent on the death march west . Zak was freed by the Red Army and drafted into it for three years.

At 19 he returned to Vilnius, completed his school education and began studying physics at Vilnius University .

In 1950 he was to be drafted again by the Red Army as a result of the Korean War . With the intervention of his brother Benzoin, who later became a well-known doctor in Tel Aviv , this was prevented at the last minute. In 1953 he became the Lithuanian master in single kayak (1000 m). In 1955 he completed his studies and moved to the State University of Saint Petersburg .

Due to the political unrest in autumn 1956 and the rise of Władysław Gomułka in 1956, the reforms proposed by Gomułka allowed Jews born in Poland to emigrate to Israel . Zak and his two brothers took the opportunity and moved to Warsaw in March 1957 and finally to Haifa in December 1957 .

Zak has been at the Technion in Haifa since 1958 and was a. a. Student of Nathan Rosen . In 1960 he received his doctorate there, and in 1970 he was appointed professor. In 1963/64 (at the invitation of Benjamin Lax ) and 1967/68 he was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 1968/69 at Northwestern University .

He deals with symmetries in quantum mechanics and solid state physics, topological phases, finite phase spaces in quantum mechanics, von Neumann gratings and magneto-optics.

Among other things, he investigated the role of the Berry phase in band structures in solids in the 1980s .

In 2014 he received the Wigner Medal , which is awarded for group theoretical work in physics.

Fonts

Books:

  • Joshua Zak (Editor), A. Casher, M. Gluck, Y. Gur: The Irreducible Representations of Space Groups , WA Benjamin, New York, 1969

Articles (selection):

  • Magnetic translation group 1,2, Phys. Rev. A, Volume 134, 1964, pp. 1602, 1607
  • Finite Translations in Solid State Physics, Phys. Rev. Letters. Volume 19, 1967, pp. 1385-1387
  • with H. Bacry , A. Grossmann : Proof of Completeness of Lattice States in the kq-Representation, Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 12, 1975, pp. 1118-1120.
  • with M. Boon: Discrete Coherent States on the von-Neumann Lattice, Phys. Rev. B 18, 1978, pp. 6744-6751
  • Symmetry Specification of Bands in Solids, Phys. Rev. Letters 45, 1980, p. 1025
  • Band Representations and Symmetry Types of Bands in Solids, Phys. Rev. B 23, 1981, p. 2824
  • with M. Boon, J. Zucker: Rational von Neumann Lattices, J. Math. Phys. 24, 1983, p. 316
  • Rules for Bands in Solids: Application to Band Calculations, Phys. Rev. B 26, 1982, p. 1959
  • Band Center - A Conserved Quantity in Solids, Phys. Rev. Letters, Volume 48, 1982, p. 359
  • with I. Dana: First-Principles Calculation of Diamagnetic Band Structure, Phys. Rev. Letters 48, 1982, p. 1226
  • with I. Dana, Y. Avron : Quantum Hall Conductance in a Perfect Crystal, J. Phys. C 18, 1985, L679
  • with I. Dana: Quantum hall Conductance and Localization in a Magnetic Field, Phys. Rev. B 32, 1985, p. 3612
  • Two Classes of Composite Energy Bands in Solids, Phys. Rev. Letters 54, 1985, p. 1075
  • with H. Bacry, L. Michel : Symmetry and Analyticity of Energy Bands in Solids, Phys. Rev. Letters 61, 1988, p. 1005
  • Von-Neumann Lattices and Magnetic Orbitals in Finite Phase Space, J. Math. Phys. 30, 1989, p. 1591
  • Berry's Phase for Energy Bands in Solids, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 1989, p. 2747
  • Berry's Phase in the Effective Hamiltonian Theory in Solids, Phys. Rev. B 40, 1989, p. 3156
  • with ER Moog, C. Liu, SD Bader: Fundamental Magneto-Optics, J. Appl. Physics, Vol. 68, 1990, p. 4203
  • Finite Translation in Time and Energy, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 71, 1993, p. 263
  • Quantum Mechanical Position Operator in Extended Systems, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 85, 2000, p. 1138

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Yossi Avron: Joshua Zak: Wigner medal laudation. August 14, 2014, accessed March 3, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Zak, Joshua
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilno , Poland