Leonid Ivanovich Ponomarev

Leonid Ponomarev 2009

Leonid Iwanowitsch Ponomarjow , Russian Леонид Иванович Пономарёв , English transcription Ponomarev, (born February 12, 1937 in Druschkiwka ; † January 3, 2019 in Moscow ) was a Russian physicist , known for research on muon nuclear fusion .

Ponomarjow graduated from Lomonosov University in 1963 and then went to the United Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna (Moscow) . In 1971 he completed his habilitation (Russian doctorate) and in 1985 he became a professor. From 1983 he was laboratory manager at the Kurchatov Institute (Laboratory for Theory of Quantum Processes and Theoretical Department of the Institute for Molecular Physics).

He researched the quantum mechanics of mesonic molecules (a three-body problem with Coulomb interaction), as they are important for muon nuclear fusion, and determined the energy levels of the mesonic molecules (muon with deuterium-deuterium or deuterium-tritium) with increasing precision. With Semjon Solomonowitsch Gerschtein he was a leader in theoretical research on muon-catalyzed nuclear fusion in the Soviet Union after the pioneering work of Andrei Sakharov and Jakow Borissowitsch Seldowitsch in the 1950s. In 1975 he found theoretically (announced at a conference in Vancouver in 1977) that a resonance effect in deuterium-tritium mixtures significantly increases the fusion rates in muon-catalyzed fusion. 1979 this could be confirmed experimentally in Dubna (by Dschelepow). This contributed significantly to the revival of interest in muon-catalyzed fusion in the West as well.

He has over 150 publications, including three monographs and two popular science books.

In 1986 he received the Kurchatov Gold Medal with Wenedikt Petrovich Dschelepow (who was a leader in experimental research on muon-catalyzed fusion in the Soviet Union). In 1994 he became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

His son Andrei Ponomarjow (1957-2014) was a Byzantinist.

Fonts

• On the other side of the quanta (Russian), 1971 (popular science)
  • German translation: Beyond the quantum: a popular quantum physics, Aulis Verlag 1977 (also Urania-Verlag Leipzig)
• Under the sign of the quanta (Russian), 1984, 2007 (popular science)
  • English translation: The quantum dice, Bristol: Institute of Physics Publ. 1993
• The history of one hypothesis, in: RG Chambers u. a., Sir Charles Frank, an eightieth birthday tribute, Adam Hilger 1991, pp. 18-45
• Muon-catalyzed fusion, Contemporary Physics, Volume 31, 1990, pp. 219-245
• with Gershtein: Mesomolecular processes induced by and mesons, in W. Hughes, CS Wu, Meson Physics, Volume 3, 1975, pp. 141-233 ${\displaystyle \mu ^{-}}$ ${\displaystyle \pi ^{-}}$
• Muon catalyzed fusion and fundamental physics, Hyperfine Interactions, 103, 1996, pp. 137-145

Web links

• Russian biography
• Obituary ( Russian )