Nikita Alexandrovich Nekrasov (russian: Ники́та Алекса́ндрович Некра́сов; born 10 April 1973) is a mathematical and theoretical physicist at the

Simons Center for Geometry and Physics The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is a center for theoretical physics and mathematics at Stony Brook University in New York. The focus of the center is mathematical physics and the interface of geometry and physics. It was founded in 2 ...

and C.N.Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and a

Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Professor of the RAS, or RAS Professor; russian: Профе́ссор Росси́йской акаде́мии нау́к – Proféssor Rossíiskoj akadémii naúk) is an academic rank introduced in ...

Career

Nekrasov studied at the Moscow State 57th School in 1986–1989. He graduated with honors from the

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; russian: Московский Физико-Технический институт, also known as PhysTech), is a public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares speciali ...

in 1995, and joined the theory division of the

Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics The Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP; Russian Институт теоретической и экспериментальной физики) is a multi-disciplinary research center located in Moscow, Russia. ITEP carries ou ...

. In parallel, in 1994–1996 Nekrasov did his graduate work 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 ...

, under the supervision of

David Gross David Jonathan Gross (; born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gr ...

. His

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

thesis on ''Four Dimensional Holomorphic Theories'' was defended in 1996. He joined

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as a Junior Fellow 1996–1999. He was then a Robert. H. Dicke Fellow at Princeton University from 1999 to 2000. In 2000 he moved to France as a permanent professor at the

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, jus ...

. Since 2013, he is a full professor at the

and

C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics __NOTOC__ The C. N. Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics (YITP) is a research center at Stony Brook University. In 1965, it was the vision of then University President J.S. Toll and Physics Department chair T.A. Pond to create an institute for th ...

in New York.

Research

Nekrasov is mostly known for his work on supersymmetric gauge theory, quantum integrability, and string theory. The Nekrasov partition function, which he introduced in his 2002 paper, relates in an intricate way the

instanton An instanton (or pseudoparticle) is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. An instanton is a classical solution to equations of motion with a finite, non-zero action, either in quantum mechanics or in quantum field theory. Mo ...

s in gauge theory, integrable systems, and representation theory of infinite-dimensional algebras.

Honours and awards

For his discovery of noncommutative

instantons An instanton (or pseudoparticle) is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. An instanton is a classical solution to equations of motion with a finite, non-zero action, either in quantum mechanics or in quantum field theory. Mo ...

together with

Albert Schwarz Albert Solomonovich Schwarz (; russian: А. С. Шварц; born June 24, 1934) is a Soviet and American mathematician and a theoretical physicist educated in the Soviet Union and now a professor at the University of California, Davis. Early lif ...

in 1998, noncommutative monopoles and monopole strings with

in 2000 and for his work with Alexander S. Gorsky on the relations between gauge theories and many-body systems he was awarded the of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

in 2004. For his contributions to

topological string theory In theoretical physics, topological string theory is a version of string theory. Topological string theory appeared in papers by theoretical physicists, such as Edward Witten and Cumrun Vafa, by analogy with Witten's earlier idea of topological ...

and the

ADHM construction In mathematical physics and gauge theory, the ADHM construction or monad construction is the construction of all instantons using methods of linear algebra by Michael Atiyah, Vladimir Drinfeld, Nigel Hitchin, Yuri I. Manin in their paper "Constru ...

he received the Hermann Weyl Prize in 2004. In 2008 together with Davesh Maulik,

Andrei Okounkov Andrei Yuryevich Okounkov (russian: Андре́й Ю́рьевич Окунько́в, ''Andrej Okun'kov'') (born July 26, 1969) is a Russian mathematician who works on representation theory and its applications to algebraic geometry, mathematic ...

and

Rahul Pandharipande Rahul Pandharipande (born 1969) is a mathematician who is currently a professor of mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) working in algebraic geometry. His particular interests concern moduli spaces, enumerativ ...

he formulated a set of conjectures relating Gromov–Witten theory and

Donaldson–Thomas theory In mathematics, specifically algebraic geometry, Donaldson–Thomas theory is the theory of Donaldson–Thomas invariants. Given a compact moduli space of sheaves on a Calabi–Yau threefold, its Donaldson–Thomas invariant is the virtual num ...

, for which the four authors were awarded the Compositio Prize in 2009. In late 2022, it was announced that Nekrasov was awarded the 2023 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the American Physical Society (APS). The prize was awarded for Nekrasov's “elegant application of powerful mathematical techniques to extract exact results for quantum field theories, as well as shedding light on integrable systems and non-commutative geometry.�

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nekrasov, Nikita Living people 1973 births Russian string theorists French physicists Jewish physicists Mathematical physicists Princeton University alumni Theoretical physicists Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni Stony Brook University faculty