Leon Takhtajan

Leon Armenovich Takhtajan (; , born 1 October 1950, Yerevan) is a Russian (and formerly Soviet) mathematical physicist of Armenian descent, currently a professor of mathematics at the Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, and a leading researcher at the Euler International Mathematical Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Biography Leon Armenovich Takhtajan was born in Yerevan, Soviet Union, in 1950, son of the Armenian Russian botanist Armen Takhtajan.

Education Takhtajan received in 1975 his Ph.D. (Russian candidate degree) from the Steklov Institute (Leningrad Department) under Ludvig Faddeev with thesis Complete Integrability of the Equation . He was then employed at the Steklov Institute (Leningrad Department) and in 1982 received his D.S. degree (doctor of science, 2nd degree in Russia) with thesis Completely integrable models of field theory and statistical mechanics.

Career Since 1992 he has been a professor at Stony Brook University where he was the chair of the mathematics department in 2009–2013.

Research His research is on integrable systems of mathematical physics (such as the theory of solitons) and applications of quantum field theories and models of string theory to algebraic geometry and complex analysis. It includes quantum field theories on algebraic curves and associated reciprocity laws, two-dimensional quantum gravity and Weil–Petersson geometry of moduli spaces, the Kähler geometry of universal Teichmüller space, and trace formulas. His major contributions are in the theory of classical and quantum integrable systems, quantum groups and Weil–Petersson geometry of moduli spaces. Together with Ludvig Faddeev and Evgeny Sklyanin he formulated the algebraic Bethe ansatz and quantum inverse scattering method. Together with Ludvig Faddeev and Nicolai Reshetikhin he proposed a method of quantization of Lie groups and algebras called the FRT construction.

Selected publications Articles

Решетихин Н. Ю., Тахтаджян Л. А., Фаддеев Л. Д. Квантование групп Ли и алгебр Ли — Алгебра и анализ, 1:1 (1989), Eng. translation:

Books