Boris Altshuler

{{Short description|American academic}} {{Infobox scientist | image = | name = Boris Leonidovich Altshuler | native_name = Борис Леонидович Альтшулер | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1955|1|27|df=y}} | birth_place = Leningrad, Soviet Union | death_date = | death_place = | field = Condensed matter physics | alma_mater = University of St. Petersburg Leningrad Institute for Nuclear Physics | work_institution = Leningrad Institute for Nuclear Physics MIT Princeton Columbia Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences | prizes = Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize {{small|(1993)}} Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize {{small|(2003)}} Lars Onsager Prize {{small|(2022)}} }}

'''Boris Leonidovich Altshuler''' ({{langx|ru|Бори́с Леонидович Альтшу́лер}}, born 27 January 1955, Leningrad, USSR) is a professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University. His specialty is theoretical condensed matter physics.

==Education and career== Altshuler attended State Secondary School 489 in Saint Petersburg. He received his diploma in physics from Leningrad State University in 1976. Altshuler continued on at the Leningrad Institute for Nuclear Physics, where he was awarded his Ph.D. in physics in 1979. Altshuler stayed at the institute for the next ten years as a research fellow.<ref name=aps>{{cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?first_nm=Boris&last_nm=Altshuler&year=2003|title=2003 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize Recipient|publisher=American Physical Society|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref>

In 1989, Altshuler joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While there, he received the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (now called the Agilent Physics Prize) and became a fellow of the American Physical Society.<ref name=aps/>

Altshuler left MIT in 1996 to take a professorship at Princeton University. While there, he became affiliated with NEC Laboratories America. Recently, Altshuler has joined the faculty of Columbia and continues to work with the NEC Labs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres96/13.06.html|title=MIT Reports to the President 1995-96|publisher=MIT|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref>

==Research== Altshuler's contributions to condensed matter physics are broad and manifold. He is particularly famous for his work on disordered electronic systems, where he was the first to calculate singular quantum interference corrections to electron transport due to interactions (Altshuler-Aronov corrections). Together with Aronov, he has also developed theory of dephasing in weak-localization. In collaboration with Boris Shklovskii, Altshuler developed the theory of level repulsion in disordered metals.

He has also significantly contributed to the theory of universal conduction fluctuations. More recently, Altshuler and Igor Aleiner have pioneered the new field of many-body localization, where they showed that an interacting many-body system may remain localized - a phenomenon descending from the famous phenomenon of Anderson localization. The latter achievement of Altshuler and Aleiner is widely regarded as a major milestone and many-body localization, they introduced, has now developed into a flourishing new field of physics. In 2016, the predicted phenomenon of many-body localization was observed experimentally by the group of Immanuel Bloch in Munich, Germany.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://phys.org/news/2016-07-scientists-evidence-many-body-localization-quantum.html|author=Olivia Meyer-Streng|title=Benchtop cosmology exploits solid-state systems|website=Phys.org|date=8 July 2016|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref>

==Awards and honors== *1993: Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/1993/01/epn19932401p18.pdf|title=Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize|publisher=Europhysics News|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> *1993: Became a fellow of the American Physical Society *1996: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences<ref>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A|url=https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/academy/multimedia/pdfs/publications/bookofmembers/ChapterA.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> *2002: Elected to the National Academy of Sciences<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20002165.html|title=Boris L. Altshuler|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> *2003: Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society<ref name=aps/> *Elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dnva.no/c26849/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40118|title=Gruppe 2: Fysikkfag (herunder astronomi, fysikk og geofysikk)|publisher=Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters|language=no|access-date=12 January 2020|archive-date=27 September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927171005/http://www.dnva.no/c26849/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40118|url-status=dead}}</ref> *2017: Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics, awarded by the University of New South Wales<ref>{{cite news|title=2018 DIRAC Lecture - Professor Boris Altshuler|date=6 November 2017|url=https://www.physics.unsw.edu.au/news/2018-dirac-lecture-professor-boris-altshuler|publisher=University of New South Wales|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> *2019: Simons Fellow<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.simonsfoundation.org/team/boris-altshuler/|title=Boris Altshuler, Ph.D.|date=13 July 2017|publisher=Simons Foundation|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> *2022: Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society<ref>{{Cite web|title=Prize Recipient|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Altshuler&first_nm=Boris&year=2022|access-date=2022-01-30|website=www.aps.org|language=en}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== *[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/fac-bios/Atlshuler/faculty.html Boris Altshuler's Page at Columbia University] *Boris Altshuler "50 years of Anderson Localization": [http://sadovski.iep.uran.ru/RUSSIAN/LTF/sumsch_c_files/PDF/Altshuler_1.pdf Lecture 1], [http://sadovski.iep.uran.ru/RUSSIAN/LTF/sumsch_c_files/PDF/Altshuler_2.pdf Lecture 2], [http://sadovski.iep.uran.ru/RUSSIAN/LTF/sumsch_c_files/PDF/Altshuler_3.pdf Lecture 3] (June 2010, Zelenogorsk, Saint Petersburg)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Altschuler, Boris}} Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Scientists from Saint Petersburg Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni Category:Soviet physicists Category:20th-century American physicists Category:Moscow Helsinki Group Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society Category:Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners Category:MIT School of Science faculty Category:Princeton University faculty