Europhysics Prize

(From the press release by Agilent Technologies)

The Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Condensed Matter Physics is an annual award, funded by donations from the Agilent Foundation to the European Physical Society.

The Europhysics Prize is considered to be one of the most prestigious physics prizes presented in Europe. Eight previous winners have subsequently won Nobel Prizes for their work. Since 1975, the award has been given to leading scientists in nearly every internationally important area of condensed matter physics.

The award is given in recognition of recent work by one or more individuals in the area of physics of condensed matter, particularly work leading to advances in the fields of electronic, electrical and materials engineering, which, in the opinion of the Society's Selection Committee, represent scientific excellence. The Selection Committee consists of five members who are appointed by the Society and includes an Agilent Technologies' representative.

The Agilent Foundation is proud to continue the tradition of funding the prize, a tradition started by HP in 1975. It includes a substantial cash award (51,000 Swiss Francs). This sponsorship demonstrates Agilent's commitment to technical innovation, including fundamental physics.
 

Article in Europhysics News

Previous prize winners

Dynamical Mean-Field Theory

(See also the citation of the European Physical Society.)

Fig. 1. The Dynamical Mean-Field Theory treats the properties of solid materials as electrons fluctuate within it. This figure shows an atom successively capturing two electrons. Reprinted with permission from Physics Today, March 2004, American Institute of Physics.

The 2006 Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize has been awarded to Antoine Georges, Gabriel Kotliar, Walter Metzner and Dieter Vollhardt for their development of the Dynamical Mean-Field Theory.

Within the past century we have repeatedly witnessed remarkable advances that were made possible by the development of new materials with useful properties. For example, the revolution in electronics comes from our ability to understand the physics of semiconductors and to design devices that utilize their novel properties.

For the advancement of technology, it is of paramount importance to develop the best theoretical techniques for the understanding and prediction of the behavior of materials.
There are materials with great potential for technology, however, for which the prevailing theoretical techniques are inadequate. For example, the high-temperature superconducting materials are still not well understood, nor are some materials showing great promise for advanced magnetic storage devices.

The fundamental physical principles that describe materials are well known, but the application of these principles is extremely complex. Even a small sample has huge numbers of interacting particles, each affecting the motion of all the others. In particular, electrons are strongly repelled by any nearby electrons. Because it is not possible to account for the motions of all these particles in detail, physicists have to make approximations. One method is to assume that the electrons travel throughout the material interacting weakly enough that it is sufficient to treat each electron as if it is in an unchanging sea of other electrons. Another approach is to assume that the electron-electron repulsion dominates, causing the electrons to be strongly localized to individual atoms.

Unfortunately, some of the most interesting materials cannot be understood in either way. Georges, Kotliar, Metzner, and Vollhardt have developed and applied a new theoretical method called Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. In combination with other techniques, this theory is able to describe the whole range of materials, encompassing weakly interacting and strongly localized models within one framework that can also handle the intermediate cases. One of the exciting theoretical steps is to imagine the material in a space of higher dimension and then make the approximation that the number of dimensions is infinite. This radical assumption greatly simplifies the equations and leads to remarkably accurate predictions.

The winners of the prize have applied their new theory to many materials, explaining phenomena that had previously been poorly understood, and making predictions that were subsequently verified by experiment. A rich new field of condensed matter physics has been created that will surely result in many important insights and discoveries in the years to come. Some of these discoveries will have direct application to the development of technology, making this an outstanding choice for the Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize.

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