Arkady Migdal

Arkady Beynusovich (Benediktovich) Migdal (; Lida, Russian Empire, 11 March 1911 – Princeton, United States, 9 February 1991) was a Soviet physicist and member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. He developed the formula that accounts for the Landau–Pomeranchuk–Migdal effect, a reduction of the bremsstrahlung and pair production cross sections at high energies or high matter densities.

Biography Arkady Migdal, whose father was a Jewish pharmacist, and Yakov Frenkel was the chief of the theory department. He did important research in atomic and nuclear physics, quantum field theory, metal theory and other problems of modern theoretical physics. Using the methods of many-body theory in nuclear physics, he obtained important results in the theory of moments of inertia of the atomic nucleus. Using the ideas of the Fermi-liquid theory to describe finite systems, he and his colleagues were the first to quantitatively described important properties of nuclei — magnetic and quadrupole moments, isotopic shift, radiative transitions, and giant resonance in photo absorption. In 1954 he developed a rigorous quantum electrodynamic theory of bremsstrahlung and pair formation in media. In 1959 he suggested that the nuclear matter in neutron stars is a liquid in a superfluid state.

In a 1977 interview, Migdal said:

In 1942 Artem Alikhanian and Abram Alikhanov went on an expedition into Yerevan to study cosmic rays. Toward the end of WWII, Landau, Pomeranchuk, and Migdal did some theoretical research on cosmic rays, concerning the theory of Auger showers. (translated by Anthony J. Leggett, according to p. iii)

(translated by Anthony J. Leggett, according to page v)