Igor R. Klebanov (russian: И́горь Ромáнович Клеба́нов; uk, Ігор Романович Клєбанов; born March 29, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist. Since 1989, he has been a faculty member at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
where he is currently a Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and the Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. In 2016, he was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
. Since 2022, he is the Director of the Simons Collaboration on Confinement and QCD Strings.
Biography
Klebanov grew up in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.MIT (class of 1982) and his Ph.D. degree at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1986 as a student of
Curtis Callan
Curtis Gove Callan Jr. (born October 11, 1942) is an American theoretical physicist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He has conducted research in gauge theory, string theory, inst ...
.
In his thesis he made advances in the
Skyrme model
In particle theory, the skyrmion () is a topologically stable field configuration of a certain class of non-linear sigma models. It was originally proposed as a model of the nucleon by (and named after) Tony Skyrme in 1961. As a topological solito ...
of
hadron
In particle physics, a hadron (; grc, ἁδρός, hadrós; "stout, thick") is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong interaction. They are analogous to molecules that are held together by the ele ...
s, which included the first paper on a Skyrmion crystal.
Klebanov worked as a post-doc in the SLAC Theory Group.
His main contributions to string theory are in Matrix model approaches to two-dimensional strings, in
brane
In string theory and related theories such as supergravity theories, a brane is a physical object that generalizes the notion of a point particle to higher dimensions. Branes are dynamical objects which can propagate through spacetime accordin ...
dynamics, and in the gauge theory-gravity duality.
His work in 1996-97 on relations between branes in supergravity and their
gauge theory
In physics, a gauge theory is a type of field theory in which the Lagrangian (and hence the dynamics of the system itself) does not change (is invariant) under local transformations according to certain smooth families of operations (Lie groups) ...
description anticipated the gauge theory-gravity correspondence.
Klebanov's 1998 paper with his graduate student Gubser, and
Polyakov
Polyakov or Poliakov, (russian: Поляко́в, uk, Поляко́в, he, פוליאקוב, be, Палякоў, Paliakoŭ), or Polyakova, Paliakova (feminine; ) is a Slavs, Slavic surname. It may be transliterated as ''Poliakoff''.
Nota ...
, which made a precise statement of the
AdS/CFT
In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter s ...
duality, is among the all-time top cited papers in high-energy physics (it has over 11,500 citations according to Google Scholar).
A series of papers by Klebanov and collaborators on
D-branes
In string theory, D-branes, short for ''Dirichlet membrane'', are a class of extended objects upon which open strings can end with Dirichlet boundary conditions, after which they are named. D-branes were discovered by Jin Dai, Leigh, and Polchi ...
on the
conifold In mathematics and string theory, a conifold is a generalization of a manifold. Unlike manifolds, conifolds can contain conical singularities, i.e. points whose neighbourhoods look like cones over a certain base. In physics, in particular in fl ...
has led to discovery of cascading gauge theory. Its dual warped throat provides a geometric description of color confinement and chiral symmetry breaking; it has been used in model building for cosmology and particle physics. The relation between 3-dimensional critical O(N) model and bosonic higher-spin gauge theory in 4-dimensional AdS space has been called the Klebanov-Polyakov correspondence.
Klebanov's more recent work includes the Entanglement Entropy in confining gauge theories, the F-theorem for Renormalization Group flows, large N tensor models, field theory descriptions of critical phenomena, and quantum many-body scars as group invariant states.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.
*2014
Tomassoni awards
Tomassoni awards was the overarching name of two prizes for outstanding achievements in physics, the Premio Felice Pietro Chisesi e Caterina Tomassoni and the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi. The two prizes were awarded every one ...
*2016 Elected to the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
.
*2017
Pomeranchuk Prize The Pomeranchuk Prize is an international award for theoretical physics, awarded annually since 1998 by the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) from Moscow. It is named after Russian physicist Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk, wh ...
*2022
Oskar Klein Medal
The Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture at Stockholm University, dedicated to the memory of the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein (1894-1977), is held annually since 1988 by a prominent physicist, who also receives the Oskar Klein Medal. The lecture is spo ...
Physics Today
''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society. I ...