WASHINGTON, March 17, 2025 – AIP and the American Physical Society (APS) are excited to award Samson Shatashvili with the 2025 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics. Shatashvili is being recognized for his clever use of various techniques in studying symmetry in quantum field theory, particularly his work with L. Faddeev on anomalies, with C. Vafa on exceptional holonomy compactifications of superstrings, and for the co-discovery of Bethe/gauge correspondence between supersymmetric vacua and quantum integrability.
This annual award recognizes significant contributions within the field of mathematical physics and will be presented at the APS Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, on March 17, 2025. Shatashvili will also be delivering a talk on March 19.
“AIP is pleased, in partnership with APS, to present Samson Shatashvili with this year’s Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics,” said Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP. “This award is particularly notable now as the United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. From his work on quantum field theory, he has proven to be an influential force in the fields of mathematics and physics, integrating the two disciplines together with his research.”
The son of an astrophysicist and a mathematician, Shatashvili had intended to pursue a career in music until high school. At a specialized physical-mathematical high school, Shatashvili developed a budding interest in quantum physics, which he credits to his excellent teachers.
“Once, renowned Soviet scientist Yakov Zeldovich was visiting our home,” Shatashvili said. “He asked me what I wanted to study in mathematics/physics. When I answered that I wanted to write the wave-function of the universe, he laughed and told me to go to the Landau Institute in Moscow or the Steklov Institute in St. Petersburg and do some real mathematics/theoretical physics.
“When you are as old as I am now, he added, you can fantasize about the wave-function of universe.”
Shatashvili, who now is around the same age Zeldovich was at the time, took that advice to heart. He studied at the St. Petersburg’s Steklov Mathematical Institute, where he earned a doctorate in Physical-Mathematical sciences.
“My work in mathematical physics has mostly been building bridges between different islands of mathematics and physics,” Shatashvili said.
Since the early 1980s, he has been working on problems in quantum field theory and string theory. Anomalies are properties of quantum theories which manifest themselves as a breakdown of important properties of classical physics.
At that time, Shatashvili worked with his advisor Ludvig Dmitrievich Faddeev to determine the mathematical origin of anomalies and proposed the proper mathematical language for describing them.
Shatashvili’s prize also mentions his work on the manifolds of exceptional holonomy, a complex facet of differential geometry. These exceptional holonomy manifolds exist only in dimensions seven and eight.
With Harvard University’s Cumrun Vafa, he studied string theory compactifications on such manifolds, and discovered interesting quantum symmetries, including the corresponding mirror symmetry.
His co-discovery of Bethe/gauge correspondence connects two very large subjects of mathematics and theoretical physics — supersymmetry and quantum integrability.
“Somehow it stuck to me that my teacher — L. Faddeev, who was awarded this prize in 1974 — considered it as the most important one in our discipline of mathematical physics,” Shatashvili said. “This award means a lot, and I am deeply honored.”
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