British physicist
Michael Boris Green
FRS
HonFInstP (born 22 May 1946) is a British
physicist and a pioneer of
string theory . He is a Professor of Theoretical Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at
Queen Mary University of London , emeritus professor in the
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and a Fellow of
Clare Hall, Cambridge . He was
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 2009 to 2015.
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Early life and education
Green was born the son of Genia Green and Absalom Green. He attended
William Ellis School in London and
Churchill College, Cambridge
[2] where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with
first class honours in theoretical physics (1967) and a PhD in
elementary
particle theory (1970).
[1]
[9]
[10]
Career
Following his PhD, Green did
postdoctoral research at
Princeton University (1970–72), Cambridge and the
University of Oxford . Between 1978 and 1993 he was a Lecturer and Professor at
Queen Mary College ,
University of London , and in July 1993 he was appointed
John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. On 19 October 2009 he was confirmed as the next
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics , to succeed
Stephen Hawking on 1 November 2009.
[5]
[6] In 2015 was succeeded in that chair by
Michael Cates , a specialist in colloids, gels, and particulate materials.
Research
After many years in collaboration with
John Henry Schwarz ,
[11] he co-discovered the anomaly cancellation in type I string theory in 1984. This insight, named the
Green–Schwarz mechanism , initiated the
First Superstring Revolution . Green has also worked on
Dirichlet boundary conditions in string theory which have led to the postulation of
D-branes
[12] and
instantons .
[13]
Awards and honours
Green has been awarded the
Paul Dirac and
Maxwell Medals of the
Institute of Physics , UK, the
Dirac Medal of the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste) and the
Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics of the
American Physical Society . He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society in 1989.
[14] Green has co-authored more than 150 research papers.
[7]
[15]
His nomination for the
Royal Society reads
Distinguished for his outstanding contributions to quantum field theory, especially the theory of superstrings. Green's early work was largely on duality in S-matrix theory. He was the first to prove an important result on the dual model – the cancellation of the leading divergences between boson and fermion loops. He has made significant contributions to the theory of phase transitions, but is best known for his trail-blazing work, much of it in collaboration with Schwarz, on superstring theory, including the first covariant formulation of the theory. The most important results are the proofs in 1984 and 1985 of anomaly cancellation for SO (32) and E8xE8 superstring theories and of infinity cancellation in the SO (32) case.
These definitive papers initiated the explosive growth of superstring theory, now one of the most active and exciting areas of fundamental theoretical physics.
[14]
On 12 December 2013, Michael Green shared the
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with
John Henry Schwarz "for opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces."
Selected publications
Green, M., John H. Schwarz, and
E. Witten . Superstring Theory. Vol. 1, Introduction. Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
ISBN
9780521357524 .
Superstring Theory. Vol. 2, Loop Amplitutes, Anomalies and Phenomenology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
ISBN
9780521357531 .
References
^
a
b
Michael Green at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"GREEN, Prof. Michael Boris" . Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press . (subscription required)
^ Green, M. B.; Schwarz, J. H. (1984). "Covariant description of superstrings". Physics Letters B . 136 (5–6): 367.
Bibcode :
1984PhLB..136..367G .
doi :
10.1016/0370-2693(84)92021-5 .
^ Green, M. B., Schwarz, J. H. (1982). "Supersymmetrical string theories." Physics Letters B , 109 , 444–448.
^
a
b Henderson, Mark (20 October 2009).
"Stephen Hawking's successor as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics: Michael Green" .
Times Online . Archived from
the original on 18 February 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2009 .
^
a
b
"Michael Green elected 18th Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge" . University of Cambridge. 20 October 2009. Archived from
the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2009 .
^
a
b
Michael Green's publications indexed by the
Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
^
"Cambridge University Reporter No 6380" . 18 March 2015. Retrieved 19 March 2015 .
^
Green, Michael Boris (1970).
Crossing symmetry and duality in strong interactions (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
^
"Dirac Medal 1989 Presentation Ceremony Leaflet" (PDF) . April 1990. Archived from
the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2009 .
^
Green, M. B. ;
Schwarz, J. H. (1984). "Anomaly cancellations in supersymmetric D = 10 gauge theory and superstring theory". Physics Letters B . 149 (1–3): 117–122.
Bibcode :
1984PhLB..149..117G .
doi :
10.1016/0370-2693(84)91565-X .
^ Green, M. B.; Harvey, J. A.; Moore, G. (1997). "I-brane inflow and anomalous couplings on D-branes". Classical and Quantum Gravity . 14 (1): 47–52.
arXiv :
hep-th/9605033 .
Bibcode :
1997CQGra..14...47G .
doi :
10.1088/0264-9381/14/1/008 .
S2CID
250825225 .
^ Green, M. B.; Gutperle, M. (1997). "Effects of D-instantons". Nuclear Physics B . 498 (1–2): 195–227.
arXiv :
hep-th/9701093 .
Bibcode :
1997NuPhB.498..195G .
doi :
10.1016/S0550-3213(97)00269-1 .
S2CID
15365248 .
^
a
b
"Green, Michael Boris: Library and Archive Catalogue" . London:
The Royal Society . Retrieved 11 November 2013 .
^
"Michael Green Bibliography listing" . Stanford University:
Spires High Energy Physics database. Retrieved 22 October 2009 . [
permanent dead link ]
External links
Mathematics
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