| 1 | Name: | Dr. Christopher John Pethick | |
| Institution: | Nordita; Niels Bohr International Academy | ||
| Year Elected: | 2016 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 106. Physics | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1942 | ||
Christopher Pethick is a theoretical physicist of remarkable breadth and depth, whose seminal contributions to neutron star, ultracold atomic gas, and condensed matter physics have been recognized by his Onsager Prize for statistical physics and Bethe Prize for theoretical astrophysics. He gave the first consistent description of neutron stars, from their low density crust to their superfluid interior, their behavior during stellar collapse and subsequent cooling, and identified compact X-ray sources as accreting neutron stars. He provided the microscopic basis of our current understanding of liquid helium-3 at nonzero temperature, showed how related ideas could be used to understand the transport properties of heavy-fermion materials, and in a very different context, quark matter at high densities. Recently he has bridged the gap between atomic and condensed-matter physics by his imaginative application of condensed matter concepts to ultracold atomic gases. His major influence on Scandinavian science has been recognized by his election to the Royal Danish and Norwegian Academies of Sciences and Letters. | |||