Isaak Pomeranchuk

Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk (1913 to 1966) was a Soviet theoretical physicist, born in Warsaw, who took part in the Soviet nuclear weapons program. His research ranged over particle physics, quantum field theory, electromagnetic and synchrotron radiation, condensed matter physics and the physics of liquid helium. He began work under Lev Landau in Kharkiv, joined the Lebedev Institute in 1940 and from 1946 led the theoretical department of the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow. In 1950 he proposed that liquid helium-3 has less entropy than the solid, the idea behind Pomeranchuk cooling, and he later worked on Regge theory with Vladimir Gribov. The pomeron, the Pomeranchuk instability and a theorem on particle and antiparticle collision cross sections carry his name.