Mikhail "Misha" Arkadyevich Shifman (Russian: Михаиил Аркаидьевич Шиифман; born 4

April 1949) is a theoretical physicist (high energy physics), formerly at Institute

for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, currently Ida Cohen Fine
Professor of Theoretical Physics, William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute,
University of Minnesota.

Contents

1 Scientific contributions
2 Honors and awards
3 Selected books
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Scientific contributions

Shifman is known for a number of basic contributions to quantum chromodynamics, the

theory of strong interactions, and to understanding of supersymmetric gauge
dynamics. The most important results due to M. Shifman are diverse and include (i)
the discovery of the penguin mechanism in the flavor-changing weak decays (1974);
[1] (ii) introduction of the gluon condensate and development of the SVZ sum rules
relating properties of the low-lying hadronic states to the vacuum condensates
(1979);[2] (iii) introduction of the invisible axion (1980)[3] (iv) first exact
results in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories (NSVZ beta function, gluino
condensate,1983–1988);[4] (v) heavy quark theory based on the operator product
expansion (1985–1995);[5] (vi) critical domain walls (D-brane analogs) in super-
Yang-Mills (1996);[6] (vii) non-perturbative (exact) planar equivalence between
super-Yang-Mills and orientifold non-supersymmetric theories (2003);[7] (viii) non-
Abelian flux tubes and confined monopoles (2004).[8] His paper with A. Vainshtein
and Zakharov on the SVZ sum rules[2] is among the all-time top cited papers in
high-energy physics.
Honors and awards

Mikhail Shifman received the Alexander-von-Humboldt Award in 1993, the Sakurai

Prize in 1999, the Ida Cohen Fine Chair in Theoretical Physics [9][10] and the
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize in 2006; he is the 2007 laureate of the Blaise Pascal
Chair, 2013 Pomeranchuk Prize and he was awarded the 2016 Dirac Medal and Prize.
[11] Shifman is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Selected books

M. Shifman, ed. (1992). Vacuum Structure and QCD Sum Rules. Amsterdam: North-
Holland. ISBN 9780444897459.
M. Shifman (1999). ITEP Lectures on Particle Physics and Field Theory (2
volumes). Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-2639-8.
Mikhail A. Shifman (2001). "Foreward and Notes from the Editor". In Mikhail A.
Shifman. At The Frontier of Particle Physics: Handbook of QCD (On the occasion of
the 75th birthday of Professor Boris Ioffe, in 3 volumes). Singapore: World
Scientific. doi:10.1142/9789812810458_fmatter. ISBN 981-02-4445-2.
M. Shifman, ed. (2007). Felix Berezin, The Life and Death of the Mastermind of
Supermathematics. Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981270-532-7.
M. Shifman & A. Yung (2009). Supersymmetric Solitons. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
M. Shifman (2012). Advanced Topics in Quantum Field Theory. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521190848.
M. Shifman, ed. (2015). Physics in a Mad World. Singapore: World Scientific.
ISBN 978-981-4619-28-8.
M. Shifman (2017). Standing together in Troubled Times. Singapore: World
Scientific.
See also

KSVZ axion (Kim–Shifman–Vainshtein–Zakharov axion model)

SVZ sum rules (Shifman–Vainshtein–Zakharov sum rules)
Penguin mechanism
QCD vacuum
NSVZ beta function
Gluon condensation
Gluino condensation
Critical (BPS saturated) domain walls in super-Yang–Mills
Non-Abelian flux tubes in super-Yang–Mills
Planar equivalence in non-Abelian orientifold theories