Yakir Aharonov

Yakir
Aharonov
Year
1991
Subject
Physics
Award
Cresson
Affiliation
University of South Carolina
Citation
For observations of electromagnetic potentials and insights into quantum mechanics.

Yakir Aharonov received his B.Sc. from Technion in Haifa, Israel in 1956 and his Ph.D. from Bristol University, England, in 1960.

Dr. Aharonov is a theoretical condensed matter physicist studying nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1998, Dr. Aharonov was a co-recipient of the 1998 Wolf Prize for the discovery of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect. The Aharonov-Bohm Effect posits that electrons passing through field-free regions that surrounded a region of magnetic flux would acquire different phases depending on whether they passed to the left or to the right of the flux tube. The phase difference, which can be measured in an interference experiment, depends on the flux enclosed.

Dr. Aharonov became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Israel and the United States in 1990 and 1993, respectively, and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1981.

Information as of 1991