{{Short description|British-American physicist}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Piers Coleman | image = Piers Coleman 2018.jpg | caption = Coleman in 2018 | nationality = | birth_place = Cheltenham, England | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1958}} | education = Cheltenham Grammar School | fields = Condensed matter theory | workplaces = Rutgers University<br />Royal Holloway, University of London | alma_mater = University of Cambridge<br />Princeton University | doctoral_advisor = Philip W. Anderson | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = Slave Boson, quantum criticality, Heavy Fermion superconductivity<ref name=aps>{{cite web|title=Author Profile for Piers Coleman|url=http://physics.aps.org/authors/piers_coleman|website=Physics - Piers Coleman|publisher=American Physical Society|access-date=31 January 2011}}</ref> | awards = | signature = <!--(filename only)--> | signature_alt = | footnotes = | spouse = Premala Chandra<ref name=lily>{{citation|url=https://bhavana.org.in/lalitha-kale-harish-chandra-1934-2019/|title=Lalitha Kale Harish-Chandra (1934–2019)|magazine=Bhāvanā: The mathematics magazine|volume=3|issue=3|date=July 2019|access-date=2025-05-23}}</ref> }} '''Piers Coleman''' (born 1958)<ref>{{Cite web |last=Coleman |first=Piers |date=2018 |title=Publications and CV |url=https://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~coleman/mycv18.pdf |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Piers Coleman's home page}}</ref> is a British-born theoretical physicist, working in the field of theoretical condensed matter physics.<ref name=nano>{{cite web|title=Quantum Mechanical Triplet May Lead to Superconductivity at High Temperatures|url=http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=6883|publisher=AZNanotechnology|website=Azonano|access-date=31 January 2011|date = 2008-07-22}}</ref> Coleman is professor of physics at Rutgers University in New Jersey and at Royal Holloway, University of London.

==Education and career== {{BLP unsourced section|date=July 2021}} Coleman was raised in Cheltenham, England, where he attended Cheltenham Grammar School, graduating in 1976. He completed his undergraduate education at Trinity College, Cambridge, pursuing the Natural Sciences Tripos and the Mathematics Tripos part III under the mentorship of Gilbert Lonzarich. In 1980 he won a Jane Eliza Procter Fellowship to Princeton University where he studied theoretical condensed matter physics<ref name=pugrads>{{cite web|title=Princeton University Graduate Alumni Index, 1839-1998|url=https://static-tables-prod.princeton.edu/princeton-university-graduate-alumni-index}}</ref> with Philip Warren Anderson. Contemporaries in the Princeton graduate physics program included Gabriel Kotliar, Cumrun Vafa, Nathan Mhyrvold and Jennifer Chayes. He was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, which he held from 1983 to 1988. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1986. He joined the faculty at Rutgers University in 1987. Since 2010 he has also held the position of University of London Chair of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2011, Piers Coleman replaced David Pines as a director of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter.<ref name=icamdir>{{cite web|title=Directors of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM)|url= https://www.icam-i2cam.org/directors}}</ref>

==Research== Coleman is known for his work related to strongly correlated electron systems, and in particular, the study of magnetism, superconductivity and topological insulators. He is the author of the popular text ''Introduction to Many-Body Physics''.

In his early career at Princeton University Coleman worked on the problem of valence fluctuations in solids. In the 1960s the physicist John Hubbard introduced a mathematical operator, the "Hubbard operator"<ref name=hubbard>{{cite journal|last=Hubbard |first=J.|title=Electron correlations in narrow energy bands. II. The degenerate band case|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences|volume=277|issue=1369|year=1964|pages=237–259|doi=10.1098/rspa.1964.0019|bibcode=1964RSPSA.277..237H|s2cid=122573530}}</ref> for describing the restricted fluctuations in valence between two charge states of an ion. In 1983 Coleman invented the slave boson formulation of the Hubbard operators,<ref name=sboson>{{cite journal|year=1984|pages=3035–3044|journal=Physical Review B|volume=29|issue=6|title=A New Approach to the Mixed Valence Problem|doi=10.1103/PhysRevB.29.3035|last1=Coleman|first1=Piers|bibcode=1984PhRvB..29.3035C}}</ref> which involves the factorization of a Hubbard operator into a canonical fermion and a boson <math>X_{\sigma 0}= f^{\dagger}_{\sigma}b</math>. The use of canonical fermions enabled the Hubbard operators to be treated within a field-theoretic approach,<ref name=readnewns>{{cite journal|year=1983|pages=L1055–L1060|journal=Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics|volume=16|issue=29|title=A new functional integral formalism for the degenerate Anderson model |doi=10.1088/0022-3719/16/29/007|last1=Read|first1=N.|last2=Newns|first2=D. M.|bibcode=1983JPhC...16.1055R}}</ref> allowing the first mean-field treatments of the heavy fermion problem. The slave boson approach has since been widely applied to strongly correlated electron systems, and has proven useful in developing the resonating valence bond theory (RVB) of high temperature superconductivity<ref name=rvboson>{{cite journal|journal=Physical Review Letters|title=Resonating–valence-bond theory of phase transitions and superconductivity in La2CuO4-based compounds|volume=58|issue=26|pages=2790–2793|year=1987|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.58.2790|pmid=10034850|last1=Anderson|first1=P. W.|last2=Baskaran|first2=G.|last3=Zou|first3=Z.|last4=Hsu|first4=T.|bibcode=1987PhRvL..58.2790A}}</ref><ref name=gabi>{{cite journal|journal=Physical Review B|title=Superexchange mechanism and d-wave superconductivity|volume=38|issue=7|pages=5142–5145|year=1988|doi=10.1103/PhysRevB.38.5142|pmid=9946940|last1=Kotliar|first1=Gabriel|last2=Liu|first2=Jialin|bibcode=1988PhRvB..38.5142K}}</ref> and the understanding of heavy fermion compounds.<ref name=hfmetal>{{cite journal|journal=Physical Review B|volume=35|issue=7|pages=3394–3414|title=Large-orbital-degeneracy expansion for the lattice Anderson model|year=1986|doi=10.1103/PhysRevB.35.3394|pmid=9941843|last1=Millis|first1=A. J.|last2=Lee|first2=P. A.}}</ref>

At Rutgers, he became interested in the interplay of magnetism with strong electron correlations. With Natan Andrei he adapted the resonating valence bond theory of high temperature superconductivity<ref name=rvboson /> to heavy fermion superconductivity.<ref name=hfsc>{{cite journal|title=Kondo-stabilised spin liquids and heavy fermion superconductivity|journal=Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter|volume=1|issue=26|pages=4057–4080|year=1989|publisher=The Institute of Physics|doi=10.1088/0953-8984/1/26/003|last1=Coleman|first1=P.|last2=Andrei|first2=N.|bibcode=1989JPCM....1.4057C}}</ref> In 1990 with Anatoly Larkin and Premi Chandra, they explored the effect of thermal and zero-point magnetic fluctuations on two dimensional frustrated Heisenberg magnets.<ref name=ccl>{{cite journal|title=Ising Transition in Frustrated Heisenberg Models|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=64|pages=88–91|year=1990|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.64.88|last1=Chandra|first1=P.|last2=Coleman|first2=P.|last3=Larkin|first3=A. I.|issue=1|pmid=10041280|bibcode=1990PhRvL..64...88C}}</ref> Conventional wisdom maintained that because of the Mermin–Wagner theorem, two dimensional Heisenberg magnets are unable to develop any form of long-range order. Chandra, Coleman and Larkin demonstrated that frustration can lead to a finite temperature Ising phase transition into a striped state with long range spin-nematic order. This kind of order is now known to develop in high temperature iron-based superconductors.<ref name=sachdev>{{cite journal|title=Ising and spin orders in the iron-based superconductors|year=2008 |journal=Physical Review B|volume=79|issue=2|pages=020501(R)|doi=10.1103/PhysRevB.78.020501|arxiv=0804.4293|last1=Xu|first1=Cenke|last2=Müller|first2=Markus|last3=Sachdev|first3=Subir|bibcode=2008PhRvB..78b0501X |s2cid=6815720 }}</ref>

Working with Alexei Tsvelik, Coleman carried out some of the earliest applications of Majorana Fermions to condensed matter problems. In 1992, Coleman, Miranda and Tsvelik examined the application of the Majorana representation of spins <math>\vec S = - \tfrac{i}{2} \vec \eta \times \vec \eta</math> to the Kondo lattice, showing that if local moments fractionalize as Majorana, rather than Dirac fermions, the resulting ground-state is an odd-frequency superconductor.<ref name=oddw1>{{cite journal|title= Possible realization of odd-frequency pairing in heavy fermion compounds|year= 1993|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=70|issue=19|pages=2960–2963|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.70.2960|pmid=10053697|last1= Coleman|first1= P.|last2= Miranda|first2= E.|last3= Tsvelik|first3= A.|arxiv= cond-mat/9302018|bibcode= 1993PhRvL..70.2960C|s2cid= 17236854}}</ref><ref name=oddw2>{{cite journal|title=Odd-frequency pairing in the Kondo lattice|year= 1994|journal=Physical Review B|volume=49|issue=13|pages=8955–8982|doi=10.1103/PhysRevB.49.8955|pmid=10009677|last1=Coleman|first1=P.|last2=Miranda|first2=E.|last3=Tsvelik|first3=A.|arxiv=cond-mat/9305017|bibcode= 1994PhRvB..49.8955C|s2cid= 16281393}}</ref> Working with Andrew Schofield and Alexei Tsvelik, they later advanced a model to account for the unusual magneto-resistance properties of high temperature superconductors in their normal state, in which the electrons fractionalize into Majorana fermions.<ref name=strange1>{{cite journal|title=Phenomenological Transport Equation for the Cuprate Metals|year= 1996|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=76|issue=8|pages=1324–1327|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.1324|pmid=10061692|arxiv=cond-mat/9602001|last1=Coleman|first1=P.|last2=Schofield|first2=A. J.|last3=Tsvelik|first3=A. M.|bibcode= 1996PhRvL..76.1324C|s2cid= 44549797}}</ref>

In the late 1990s, Coleman became interested in the breakdown of Fermi liquid behavior at a quantum critical point. Working with Gabriel Aeppli and Hilbert von Löhneysen, they demonstrated established the presence of local quantum critical fluctuations in the quantum critical metal CeCu<sub>6-x</sub>Au<sub>x</sub>, identified as a consequence of the break-down of the Kondo effect that accompanies the development of magnetism.<ref name=aeppli>{{cite journal|title=Onset of antiferromagnetism in heavy-fermion metals|journal=Nature|volume=407|issue=6802| pages=351–355|year=2000|doi=10.1038/35030039|pmid=11014185|arxiv=cond-mat/0011002|last1=Schröder|first1=A.|last2=Aeppli|first2=G.|last3=Coldea|first3=R.|last4=Adams|first4=M.|last5=Stockert|first5=O.|last6=Löhneysen|first6=H.v.|last7=Bucher|first7=E.|last8=Ramazashvili|first8=R.|last9=Coleman|first9=P.|bibcode=2000Natur.407..351S|s2cid=4414169}}</ref> This led to the prediction that the Fermi surface will change discontinuously at a quantum critical point,<ref name=whydo>{{cite journal|title=How do Fermi liquids get heavy and die?|journal= Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter|year=2001|volume=13|issue=35|pages=R723–R738|doi=10.1088/0953-8984/13/35/202|last1=Coleman|first1=P.|last2=Pépin|first2=C.|last3=Si|first3=Qimiao|last4=Ramazashvili|first4=R.|arxiv=cond-mat/0105006|s2cid= 15940806}}</ref> a result later observed in field tuned quantum criticality in the material YbRh<sub>2</sub>Si<sub>2</sub><ref name=silke>{{cite journal|title=Hall-effect evolution across a heavy-fermion quantum critical point|journal=Nature|pages=881–885|year=2004|volume=432|issue=7019|doi=10.1038/nature03129|pmid=15602556|arxiv=cond-mat/0411074|last1 = Paschen|first1 = S.|last2 = Lühmann|first2 = T.|last3 = Wirth|first3 = S.|last4 = Gegenwart|first4 = P.|last5 = Trovarelli|first5 = O.|last6 = Geibel|first6 = C.|last7 = Steglich|first7 = F.|last8 = Coleman|first8 = P.|last9 = Si|first9 = Q.|bibcode=2004Natur.432..881P|s2cid=4415212}}</ref> and in pressure-tuned quantum criticality in the material CeRhIn<sub>5</sub>.<ref name=shishido>{{cite journal|title=A Drastic Change of the Fermi Surface at a Critical Pressure in CeRhIn 5: dHvA Study under Pressure|pages=1103–1106|year=2005|volume=74|issue=4|journal=Journal of the Physical Society of Japan|doi=10.1143/JPSJ.74.1103|last1 = Shishido|first1 = Hiroaki|last2 = Settai|first2 = Rikio|last3 = Harima|first3 = Hisatomo|last4 = Ōnuki|first4 = Yoshichika|bibcode=2005JPSJ...74.1103S}}</ref>

After the discovery of topological insulators, Coleman became interested in whether topological insulating behavior could exist in materials with strong correlation. In 2008, the team of Maxim Dzero, Kai Sun and Victor Galitski and Piers Coleman predicted that the class of Kondo insulators can develop a topological ground-state, proposing samarium hexaboride (SmB<sub>6</sub>) as a Topological Kondo Insulator.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Topological Kondo Insulators| journal = Physical Review Letters| volume = 104| issue = 10| article-number = 106408| year = 2010| doi = 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.106408| pmid = 20366446| last1 = Dzero| first1 = Maxim| last2 = Sun| first2 = Kai| last3 = Galitski| first3 = Victor| last4 = Coleman| first4 = Piers| arxiv = 0912.3750| bibcode = 2010PhRvL.104j6408D| s2cid = 119270507}}</ref> The observation of the development of robust conducting surface states in SmB<sub>6</sub> is consistent with this early prediction.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Hopes surface for exotic insulator| journal = Nature| volume = 492| issue = 7428| page = 165| year = 2012| last1 = Reich | first1 = Eugenie Samuel| doi = 10.1038/492165a| pmid = 23235853| bibcode = 2012Natur.492..165S| doi-access = free}}</ref><ref name=quanta>{{cite journal|last=Wolchover|first=Natalie |title=Paradoxical Crystal Baffles Physicists|journal=Quanta Magazine|date=2 July 2015 |url=https://www.quantamagazine.org/samarium-hexaboride-crystal-blurs-metal-insulator-line-20150702/}}</ref>

Notable former research students and postdoctoral fellows in his group include Ian Ritchey,<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.raeng.org.uk/about-us/the-fellowship/new-fellows-2017/fellows/ian-ritchey |title = Ian Ritchey - Royal Academy of Engineering}}</ref> Eduardo Miranda,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://sites.ifi.unicamp.br/emiranda/en/ | title=About me | date=6 January 2014 }}</ref> Andrew Schofield, Maxim Dzero,<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.kent.edu/physics/profile/maxim-dzero | title=Maxim Dzero &#124; Physics &#124; Kent State University}}</ref> Andriy Nevidomskyy<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://physics.rice.edu/people/andriy-nevidomskyy |title = An9 &#124; Physics and Astronomy &#124; Rice University}}</ref> and Rebecca Flint<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://flint.public.iastate.edu/ |title=Rebecca Flint |access-date=2022-07-15 |archive-date=2019-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902214656/https://flint.public.iastate.edu/ }}</ref>

==Personal life==

Piers Coleman is married to the American theoretical physicist Premala Chandra and they have two sons. He is the elder brother of musician and composer Jaz Coleman.<ref name=nature>{{cite journal|last=Tomlin|first=Sarah|title=Brothers in Art|journal=Nature|date=2 September 2004|volume=431|pages=14–16|issue=7004|doi=10.1038/431014a|pmid=15343304|s2cid=4379887|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Science outreach==

Along with his younger brother Jaz, Coleman worked on a concert and physics outreach website ''Music of the Quantum''. The concert has pieces composed by Jaz Coleman, based on themes from physics such as quantum criticality, emergence and symmetry breaking. They delivered performances of ''Music of the Quantum'' at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague and at Columbia University in New York.<ref name=nature /> He has also produced a short documentary on Emergence with Paul Chaikin, as part of the Annenberg series Physics in the 21st Century.<ref name=chaikin>{{cite web |last1=Coleman |first1=Piers |last2=Chaikin |first2=Paul |website=Annenburg Learner|title=Emergent Behavior in Quantum Matter|url=https://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/unit_sci.html?unit=8|year=2010}}</ref>

==Awards and honors==

Coleman was awarded a Sloan Fellowship in 1988. In 2002 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for innovative approaches to the theory of strongly correlated electron systems".<ref>[http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=C&year=&unit_id=&institution= APS Fellows, 1995-present], American Physical Society. Accessed July 21, 2011</ref> In 2018 he was elected to the board of the Aspen Center for Physics. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Theory, and the Department of Energy, division of Basic Energy Sciences.

==Books== * {{Cite book|title=Introduction to Many-Body Physics |publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2015|isbn=978-0-521-86488-6|location=Cambridge, U.K.|last=Coleman|first=Piers|url= https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/introduction-to-manybody-physics/B7598FC1FCEE0285F5EC767E835854C8}}

== See also == * Zlatko Tesanovic

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *{{official website|http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~coleman/}} *[http://musicofthequantum.rutgers.edu/ Music of the Quantum] website

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Piers}} Category:21st-century American physicists Category:20th-century American physicists Category:20th-century British physicists Category:21st-century British physicists Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society Category:Rutgers University faculty Category:Living people Category:1958 births Category:Theoretical physicists Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:American condensed matter physicists Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Scientists from Cheltenham Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century English non-fiction writers Category:English people of Bengali descent Category:American people of Bengali descent Category:Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Category:Aspen Center for Physics people