Piers Coleman

Piers Coleman is a prominent British theoretical physicist renowned for his foundational work in the field of strongly correlated electron systems. He is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University and a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the American Physical Society. Coleman's research has profoundly shaped the understanding of quantum materials such as heavy fermion compounds and high-temperature superconductors.

Biography

Piers Coleman was born in London and pursued his undergraduate studies in Natural Sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge. He remained at the University of Cambridge for his doctoral degree, which he completed under the supervision of John Cardy. Following his PhD, he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the University of Oxford before joining the faculty at Rutgers University. He has also held visiting professorships at institutions including the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of Cambridge.

Research and contributions

Coleman's research centers on the theory of strongly correlated electron systems, where he has made several landmark contributions. He is particularly celebrated for his work on the Kondo lattice model, providing key insights into the formation of heavy fermion behavior and the Kondo effect in metallic compounds. His development of the slave boson mean-field theory provided a powerful framework for describing the local moment screening and emergent Fermi liquid states in these materials. Coleman has also made significant advances in the theory of quantum criticality, exploring the unconventional phases and non-Fermi liquid behavior near quantum critical points in systems like YbRh2Si2. His work has deep implications for understanding unconventional superconductivity and topological order in correlated matter.

Awards and honors

Throughout his career, Coleman has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing his contributions to condensed matter physics. In 2005, he was a co-recipient of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, one of the highest honors in the field in the United States. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2004. Other notable honors include being elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and receiving the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research. He has also delivered distinguished lectures such as the Loeb Lectures at Harvard University.

Selected publications

Coleman has authored and co-authored many influential papers and a widely used textbook. A selection of his key works includes: * "New Approach to the Mixed-Valence Problem" (Physical Review B, 1984), introducing the slave boson formalism. * "Heavy Fermions and the Kondo Lattice: A 21st Century Perspective" (Reviews of Modern Physics, 2015). * "Introduction to Many-Body Physics" (Cambridge University Press, 2015), a comprehensive graduate textbook. * "Quantum Criticality and the Kondo Lattice" (Nature Physics, 2007). * "Frustrated Kondo Alloys" (Physical Review Letters, 2016).

Academic appointments

Piers Coleman has held significant academic positions at leading institutions. His primary appointment is as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He has also served as a Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge and a Director of Studies at Churchill College, Cambridge. Additionally, he has held the position of Visiting Professor at the Cavendish Laboratory and has been associated with the Condensed Matter Theory Center at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Category:British theoretical physicists Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Rutgers University faculty Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge Category:1958 births Category:Living people