Yoichiro Nambu
1921–2015, Tokyo, Japan, Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Japanese-American theoretical physicist, a pioneer of spontaneous symmetry breaking whose work became foundational in particle physics and quantum field theory.
Born in Tokyo, Nambu studied physics at Tokyo Imperial University and began his postwar career in Japan. In 1952 he moved to the United States to join the University of Chicago, where he spent most of his career; he became a U.S. citizen in 1970.
In 1960 he explained spontaneous symmetry breaking in particle physics, an idea that profoundly influenced theories of the weak interaction and the Standard Model. He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.
Nobel-winning work
Nambu received half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics 'for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics'. Adapting ideas from the BCS theory of superconductivity, he showed in 1960 (with Jona-Lasinio) that a symmetric theory can have an asymmetric vacuum, generating massless Nambu–Goldstone bosons. The mechanism became central to the Standard Model's Higgs sector.
Workplaces: Osaka City University, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago
Japan, United States