2016 Medal Winners | francais

The 2016 CAP Herzberg Medal

is awarded to

Roger Melko

"It is a tremendous honour to receive the CAP Herzberg medal, and a humbling experience to join past recipients whom I have long admired and respected. This award recognizes the talented work of my many collaborators and students. My deepest appreciation goes to CAP for the value this organization places on our Canadian physics community." winner citation

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2016 CAP Herzberg Medal is awarded to Roger Melko, University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute, in recognition of for his contributions to theoretical condensed matter physics, particularly large scale computer simulations which elucidate timely issues in the physics of strongly correlated electronic systems. announcement

Dr. Roger Melko is a pioneer and world leader in the modern multidisciplinary field of quantum many-body physics. He has made major contributions to our understanding of strongly interacting condensed-matter systems through large-scale computer simulations. The innovative new models and algorithms developed by Melko have enhanced the reach of computational methods and enabled the exploration of new physical phenomena.

Through the creative use of cutting-edge simulations, he has produced numerous groundbreaking results, including identifying exotic new phases of quantum matter, characterizing quantum phase transitions, and demonstrating emergent topological phenomena. His development of an innovative new approach to evaluate entropic measures of entanglement with quantum Monte Carlo simulations in 2010 was a breakthrough. His methods are now widely used and, as a result, entanglement is now broadly recognized as a useful diagnostic in the study of quantum matter by condensed matter physicists around the world.

The ability to study entanglement with quantum Monte Carlo techniques has facilitated new synergies between a variety of fields, including topological quantum computing, quantum field theory, and quantum gravity. Recently, using his new approach, Melko discovered and characterized new universal physics in quantum critical theories. This work has far-reaching implications for the theory of quantum phase transitions, renormalization-group fixed points, and the relationship between the underlying geometrical structure of correlations in conformal field theories and their higher-dimensional gravity duals. nominator citation

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