Anatoly Larkin

Anatoly Larkin

Anatoly Ivanovich Larkin (Russian: Анатолий Иванович Ларкин; October 14, 1932 – August 4, 2005) was a Russian theoretical physicist, universally recognised as a leader in theory of condensed matter, and who was also a celebrated teacher of several generations of theorists.

Born in a small town of Kolomna in Moscow region, Larkin went on to receive his education at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. He worked on his PhD on the properties of plasmas under the supervision of A.B.Migdal and later received the degree of Doctor of Science (1965) for studies of superconductivity.

Research at the I.V. Kurchatov Institute in Moscow (1957–66) was followed by nearly 40 years of work at the L.D.Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Chernogolovka, Moscow region, where he moved in 1966. During 1970–1991, he was also a Professor of Moscow State University. Since 1995, Larkin was a Professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota and a member of William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute.

The list of his publications (233 entries) consists of papers on condensed matter theory, theory of elementary particles, and nuclei and plasmas. Citation index of publications by A. Larkin exceeds 14,000.

The dominant part of his work is devoted to superconductivity, magnetism, ferro-electricity, properties of metals, semiconductors and dielectrics. He pioneered the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the physics of elementary particles, discovered collective pinning of magnetic flux in superconductors, predicted paraconductivity and effects of fluctuations on properties of superconductors, made essential contributions to the theory of weak localization, as well as developed the concept of the Ehrenfest time and its effect on phenomena of quantum chaos.

A.I. Larkin was the famous teacher of a large number of actively working theorists. His students and collaborators are teaching and conducting research in Russia, USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Israel and other countries.

He died suddenly at 6pm on August 4, 2005 in Aspen, Colorado, where he was attending a physics workshop.