Philip W. Phillips

Phillips' wide-ranging work in theoretical condensed matter physics and gauge-gravity duality has established new paradigms for disordered and strongly correlated electrons.  He made early contributions to studies of correlated disorder with the random dimer model, which showed how Anderson localization can be defeated with symmetric defects.  He described the interplay between spin-glass and magnetic order in quantum spin model. In cuprate high-temperature superconductivity, he coined the term Mottness (mixing between high and low energy persists even in doped Mott insulators) and has applied gauge-gravity duality to model Mott insulation. He proposed that orbital ordering promotes the structural phase transition in the iron-pnictide superconductors.