Pomeranchuk prize
The Pomeranchuk prize for 2001 is awarded to Lev Nikolaevich Lipatov (St Petersburg) and Tullio Regge (Politecnico Torino).
The prize is awarded to Lipatov for outstanding contributions to theoretical physics, especially to strong interactions at high energy. Head of Theory at St Petersburg's Nuclear Physical Institute, Gatchina, Lipatov is a member of the Russian Academy of Science and for many years worked with V N Gribov. Their famous 1972 papers created the basis of a field-theory description of deep inelastic scattering and electron-positron annihilation - the Gribov_Lipatov evolution equations, - which led to the Gribov-Lipatov-Dokshitzer-Altarelli-Parisi equations.
Lipatov's seminal 1977 papers on the Pomeranchuk singularity in quantum chromodynamics opened the way to a quantitative understanding of strong interactions at high energy. He also contributed to the study of critical phenomena (the semiclassical Lipatov's approximation), the theory of tunnelling and the renormalon contribution to effective couplings.
The prize is awarded to Tullio Regge for outstanding contributions to particle physics and to classical and quantum gravity. In 1959-1960 he showed how an extension of the partial wave decomposition of the scattering amplitude to complex momentum has a simple analytical structure. The results were extended by Gribov, Chew and Frautschi to relativistic quantum field theory. In 1958, I Ya Pomeranchuk formulated his theorem on the asymptotic equality of total cross-sections for particles and antiparticles at high energy. The exchange of a Regge pole with the quantum numbers of the vacuum was found to be in agreement with this theorem. Later, this vacuum-like Regge pole was called the Pomeron. Regge trajectories have become a standard tool in high-energy physics. Regge also suggested and developed an original and fruitful approach to general relativity, the Regge calculus. This considers a special lattice formulation of the theory (with the curvature concentrated on two-dimensional subspaces) instead of continuous space-time. It reveals an unexpected relation between the theory of gravity and the formalism of angular momentum. With De Alfaro, he wrote a monograph, Potential Scattering, which for decades was used by graduate students worldwide.
2002 nominations should reach pomeron@heron.itep.ru before 1 February 2002. For more information, see "http://face.itep.ru/pomeranchuk.html".
