Awardee Valery Rubakov will spend several research visits in Hamburg (photo: V. Rubakov).
In recent years, research teams around the world have gained important insights into the origin of the universe. They often relied on the work of Valery Rubakov. The Russian physicist will receive this year’s Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics, endowed with 137 036 euros. This was announced by the award jury today. Rubakov is chief researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and Professor at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The prize will be awarded to Rubakov in November 2020 in Hamburg by the Joachim Herz Foundation in cooperation with the Wolfgang Pauli Centre, DESY and the two clusters of excellence of the Universität Hamburg "CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter" and “Quantum Universe”.
The Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics is one of the highest endowed awards for physics in Germany. The prize money is an allusion to Sommerfeld's fine structure constant, which plays an important role in theoretical physics. Rubakov is one of the most recognized Russian theoretical physicists. He covers a broad field of research and is considered an expert in quantum field theory, elementary particle physics as well as cosmology.
”With Valery Rubakov, this year we are honoring a researcher who has given far-reaching impulses in many areas of theoretical physics and who has shaped our view of the universe significantly. He has made important contributions to our understanding of the period shortly after the Big Bang and the subsequent development of our cosmos. Rubakov’s work helps us to grasp the origin of matter and disappearance of antimatter and thus to answer the question why planets and therefore our existence on earth were able to develop at all,” says Dr. Henneke Lütgerath, chairman of the Joachim Herz Foundation.
As of autumn, 2020, Valery Rubakov will spend several research visits in Hamburg. Like each of his predecessors, he will use these stays to collaborate with scientists in Hamburg ‘s distinguished research institutions. “We are pleased that with Valery Rubakov a scientist was honored who initiated profound theoretical questions that still drive research activities in theoretical physics. His visionary approach is relevant for the basic scientific research of Hamburg’s particle physicists. Due to his well-founded research, Rubakov has a great and far-reaching influence also on neighboring disciplines and therefore is a fascinating prize winner not only for us as theorists, but also for mathematicians and experimental physicists,” says Professor Volker Schomerus, chairman of the award jury, leading scientist at DESY and spokesperson of the Wolfgang Pauli Center. Founded in 2013, the center bundles the research activities of theoretical physics in Hamburg.
More about the awardee and the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics at www.joachim-herz-stiftung.de/physicsprize.
