Professor
Anthony Zee
University of California, Santa Barbara
Theoretical physicist; Educator
Area
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Specialty
Physics
Elected
2014
Early work on renormalization group clarified the issue of coupling constant evolution, anticipating asymptotic freedom. Predicted the behavior of electron and positron annihilation cross-section using asymptotic freedom. Work on chiral anomalies with Adler, Lee, and Treiman verified, and anticipated the Wess-Zumino-Witten action. Predicted, with Treiman and Wilczek, that gluons dominate parts of the proton's wave function anticipated experimental work by 20 years. Early work on stellar cooling by neutrinos, on dyons in gauge theories, decay of charmed mesons, family symmetry, effect of heavy quarks on neutral currents, effect of instantons on heavy quark potentials, induced gravity, and a dark matter candidate coupling via the Higgs particle. Studies of unified field theories elucidated their predictions for proton decay and neutrino masses. Realized the implications for cosmology, applied them with Wilczek and others to explain the cosmic asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and put forward ideas for addressing the horizon and flatness problems that helped inspire inflationary cosmology. Calculation of electric dipole moment of electron continues to challenge experimentalists. Put forward a radiative model of neutrino masses. Also realized the significance of gauge structure and topology for condensed matter physics, in classic papers, with Schrieffer and Wilczek, on non-abelian Berry phases and fractional statistics. With Wen and Wilczek, the notion of chiral spin fluid and high temperature conductivity. With Bialek, applied information theory to biophysics. With Wen, predicted Josephson-like effects in layered quantum Hall systems, a brilliant synthesis of ideas, now confirmed experimentally. With Brezin, work on random matrix theory and the discovery of a universal correlation function. With Feinberg and others, new results on non-hermitean random matrices. With Mezard and Parisi, study of the spectra of Euclidean random matrices. With Orland, Vernizzi, and others, on the topological aspects of RNA folding. With Learned, Pakvasa, and others, novel approaches to the search for extraterrestrial intelligences. With BenTov, a speculative approach to the problem of families. His research has garnered over 20,000 citations. Author of three textbooks, on quantum field theory, on gravity, and on group theory; and of three popular books, on symmetry, on Einstein’s universe, and on Chinese food and culture.
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