| Alexey Anselm | |
| Birth Name: | Alexey Andreevich Anselm |
| Birth Place: | Leningrad, Soviet Union |
| Death Place: | Boston, U.S. |
| Resting Place: | Newton Cemetery, 791 Walnut Street, Newton, Massachusetts |
| Fields: | Theoretical physics |
| Workplaces: | Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute |
| Alma Mater: | Leningrad State University (diploma, 1956) Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (D.Sc., 1969) |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Karen Ter-Martirosian |
| Academic Advisors: | Lev Landau |
| Known For: | Director of the B.P. Konstantinov St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (1992-1994);[1] The author of the discovery of non-universality of the Landau pole in Quantum field theory, contributions to the theory. |
| Spouse: | Ludmila Anselm (married 1956; 1 child) |
Alexey Andreevich Anselm (Russian: Алексей Андреевич Ансельм, 1 July 1934 – 24 August 1998) was a Russian theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, director (1992–1994) of the B.P. Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), member of: the Russian and American Physical Society, the executive committee of the Nuclear Physics Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the editorial board of the Russian journal “Yadernaya Fizika”.[2]
Anselm was known for his discovery of non-universality of the Landau pole in Quantum field theory, contributions to the theory of complex angular momenta, works on the Quark model, Spontaneous symmetry breaking, mechanisms of CP violation, modifications of the Standard Model, Cosmology, and the development of a simple model for the proton spin crisis.[3] [4]
Anselm was born into a family of physicists. His father (1905–1988) was a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor; his mother Irina Victorovna Motchan (1903–1978) also was a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Both parents worked as research scientists at the Leningrad Institute of Semiconductors.
Aleksey Anselm graduated summa cum laude from the Leningrad State University (LSU) in 1956 and enrolled at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (Phystech) of the . He joined the Nuclear and Particle theory group of professor I. M. Shmushkevich in the Theory Department. It did not take a long time for such leading Soviet theorists as Lev Landau, Karen Ter-Martirosian and Vladimir Gribov to recognize Alexey Anselm as a talented and capable physicist. Weak and strong interactions of elementary particles became the principal field of his scientific research.In 1971 the Theory Department of Phystech was transferred to Gatchina, where it joined the . All further scientific activity of A. Anselm developed in this institute. Besides research, since 1974 A. Anselm was also a professor at the Physics Department of the Leningrad State University where he was teaching graduate courses.
In the early 1980s Anselm became a head of the LNPI Theoretical Department, and in 1992 he was elected director of the LNPI. The years immediately after collapse of the Soviet Union were perhaps the most difficult period in the history of this renowned scientific institution.
Unfailing determination by Anselm enabled the institute to survive the hard times. In 1994 a serious illness forced Alexey Anselm to retire. He endured hard medical treatments both in St. Petersburg and in Boston (US), where his daughter had moved by that time. At the end medicine was powerless, and he died in the early fall of 1998. Anselm is buried at the town cemetery of Newton, at the outskirts of Boston, US.
In the beginning of 1950s particle physics theory was in deep crisis after L. Landau, A. Abrikosov and I. Khalatinikov discovered that quantum field theory predicts nullification of interaction in quantum electrodynamics. This so called «Moscow Zero» means that quantum field theory, the principal tool of theoretical research in particle physics is not self-consistent. Landau and his school put forward widely accepted arguments that the «Moscow zero» takes place in any field theory and thus any field theory is doomed. In 1959 young Anselm discovered that there is no nullification of interaction in a certain two-dimensional model with four-fermion interaction. This means that the «Moscow zero» is non-universal and self-consistent quantum field theories do exist. Anselm’s discovery opened a path to constructing a field theory of fundamental particles and their interactions. In modern language Anselm was the first to discover a phenomenon later called «asymptotic freedom» and fundamentally important for the modern quantum field theory:
Still, this first major achievement of young A. Anselm did not receive due attention of the Soviet physicists, and 15 years later the "asymptotic freedom” phenomenon was re-discovered by western scientists.
«Anselm’s work dates back to rather gloomy days for field theorists, after Landau’s discovery of the so-called "zero charge" or, infrared freedom in modern terminology.»Anselm’s Discovery of the Gross–Neveu model in M. Shifman Under the spell of Landau 2013, chapter 11, pp.488-490.