Physics Department Faculty:
Howard Georgi
Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics; Harvard College Professor;Master of Leverett House; Head Tutor
PhD 1971, Yale University
Howard Georgi has ongoing research programs in several
areas of theoretical particle physics. The common elements
in these areas are symmetries and quantum field theory.
Georgi pioneered the subject of Grand Unified Theories,
both without (with Sheldon Glashow) and with supersymmetry
(with Savas Dimopoulos), invented the modern QCD quark
model (with Glashow and Alvaro De Rujula), the chiral
quark model (with former student Aneesh Manohar), and
the Heavy Quark Effective Theory.
The most important issue in particle physics today is the question
of what causes the spontaneous breaking of the SU(2) x U(1) symmetry
of the electroweak interactions. Georgi (who with former student
David Kaplan showed how one could build composite Higgs bosons)
studies the possibility of strong coupling models and attempts
to find new mechanisms of symmetry breaking.
He also studies QCD, the formalism of effective field theories,
the strong CP problem, and the flavor puzzle.
Most recently, with Arkani-Hamed and Cohen, he has found a class
of 4-dimensional field theories in which extra dimensions can
arise dynamically, providing a new slant on the meaning of space.
The topological properties of such theories may shed light on
critical issues such as the breaking of SU(2) x U(1) and supersymmetry.
He continues to study these issues in the hopes they will shed
light on the meaning of gauge symmetry.
In addition, he is interested in increasing the participation
of women and minorities in science and is on a number of local
and national committees that attempt to address this important
issue.
- H. Georgi and S.L. Glashow, "Unity of all elementary particle forces." Phys. Rev. Lett. 32: 438 (1974).
- H. Georgi, H. Quinn, and S. Weinberg, "Hierarchy of interactions in unified gauge theories." Phys. Rev. Lett. 33: 451 (1974).
- H. Georgi, A. De Rujula, and S. Glashow, "Hadron masses in a gauge theory." Phys. Rev. D. 12: 147 (1975).
- H. Georgi and S. Dimopoulos, "Softly broken supersymmetry and SU(5)." Nucl. Phys. B. 193:150 (1981).
- H. Georgi and A. Manohar, "Chiral quarks and the nonrelativistic quark model." Nucl. Phys. B. 234: 189 (1984).
- H. Georgi, "An effective field theory for heavy quarks at low energies." Phys. Lett. B. 240: 447 (1990).
- H. Georgi, N. Arkani-Hamed, and A. Cohen, "(De)Constructing Dimensions." Phys. Rev. Lett. 86: 4757 (2001).
- H. Georgi, N. Arkani-Hamed, and A. Cohen, "Twisted Supersymmetry and the Topology of Theory Space." hep-th0109082.
- H. Georgi, "Fun with Higgsless Theories," hep-ph/0408067 (2004).