Nigel Hitchin

Nigel Hitchin
Nigel Hitchin, 2004
Born	2 August 1946 (1946-08-02) (age 65) Holbrook, Derbyshire, England
Nationality	United Kingdom
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Oxford
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Doctoral advisor	Brian Steer Michael Atiyah
Doctoral students	Jørgen Ellegaard Andersen Yuri Bozhkov Simon Donaldson Oscar Garcia-Prada Tamás Hausel [1] Jacques Hurtubise Simon Salamon
Known for	Hitchin functional Hitchin–Thorpe inequality Nahm–Hitchin description of monopoles

Nigel Hitchin (b. 2 August 1946 in Holbrook, Derbyshire) is a British mathematician working in the fields of differential geometry, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics.

Academic career

Hitchin attended Ecclesbourne School, Duffield, and earned his BA in mathematics from Jesus College, Oxford in 1968.^[2] After moving to Wolfson College, he received his D.Phil. in 1972. In 1997 he was appointed to the Savilian Chair of Geometry at Oxford University, a position previously held by his doctoral supervisor (and later research collaborator) Sir Michael Atiyah.

Amongst his notable discoveries are the Hitchin integrable system, the Hitchin–Thorpe inequality, Hitchin's projectively flat connection over Teichmüller space, Hitchin's self-duality equations, the Atiyah-Hitchin monopole metric, the ADHM construction of instantons (of Atiyah, Drinfeld, Hitchin, and Manin), and the hyperkähler quotient construction (of Hitchin, Karlhede, Lindström and Rocek).

In his article^[which?] on generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds, he introduced the notion of generalized complex manifolds, providing a single structure that incorporates, as examples, Poisson manifolds, symplectic manifolds and complex manifolds. These have found wide applications as the geometries of flux compactifications in string theory and also in topological string theory.

Honours and Awards

In 1991 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[3]

Hitchin was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Oxford's Jesus College in 1998,^[2] and the Senior Berwick Prize (1990), the Sylvester Medal (2000) and the Pólya Prize (2002) have been awarded to him in honour of his far-reaching work. A conference was held in honour of his 60th birthday, in conjunction with the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians in Spain.

In the span of his career, Hitchin has supervised nearly thirty research students, including Simon Donaldson (part-supervised with Atiyah).

Notes

1. ^ Nigel James Hitchin at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
2. ^ ^{a b} Fellows' News, Jesus College Record (1998/9) (p.12)
3. ^ "fellows". Royal Society. http://royalsociety.org/about-us/fellowship/fellows/. Retrieved 20 November 2010. 

References

1. ^ Nigel James Hitchin at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
2. ^ ^{a b} Fellows' News, Jesus College Record (1998/9) (p.12)
3. ^ "fellows". Royal Society. http://royalsociety.org/about-us/fellowship/fellows/. Retrieved 20 November 2010. 

• Hitchin, Nigel (2003), "Generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds", Quarterly Journal of Mathematics 54 (3): 281–308, arXiv:math/0209099v1, doi:10.1093/qmath/hag025 

External links

• His home page at the University of Oxford
• Nigel Hitchin at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Persondata
Name	Hitchin, Nigel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	2 August 1946
Place of birth	Holbrook, Derbyshire, England
Date of death
Place of death

This article about a United Kingdom mathematician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: 1946 births Living people People from Derbyshire 20th-century mathematicians 21st-century mathematicians British mathematicians Differential geometers Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford Savilian Professors of Geometry Whitehead Prize winners Fellows of the Royal Society British mathematician stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР? Juraj Beneš Sandra Beckwith Look at other dictionaries: Nigel Hitchin — Nigel James Hitchin (* 2. August 1946 in Holbrook, Derbyshire, England) ist ein englischer Mathematiker, der sich mit Differentialgeometrie, algebraischer Geometrie und mathematischer Physik beschäftigt. Hitchin 2004 Leben und Wirken Nigel… …   Deutsch Wikipedia Hitchin — steht für: Nigel Hitchin (* 1946), britischer Mathematiker Hitchin (Hertfordshire), Stadt in England im Vereinigten Königreich Diese Seite ist eine Begriffsklärung zur Unterscheidung mehrerer mit demselben Wort bezeichn …   Deutsch Wikipedia Hitchin functional — The Hitchin functional is a mathematical concept with applications in string theory that was introduced by the British mathematician Nigel HitchinThe original article by Hitchin http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0010054] . As with Hitchin s introduction… …   Wikipedia Nigel Gibbs — I played in the Premier league, Europe, captained the club, and had international caps, all at Watford... I didn t do too badly by staying at one club. [1] …   Wikipedia Nigel Fisher — Sir Nigel Thomas Loveridge Fisher MC (14 July 1913 – 9 October 1996) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. Fisher was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was in the Welsh Guards of the British Army… …   Wikipedia Michael Atiyah — Sir Michael Atiyah Born 22 April 1929 (1929 04 22) (age 82) …   Wikipedia Nahm equations — The Nahm equations are a system of ordinary differential equations introduced by Werner Nahm in the context of the Nahm transform – an alternative to Ward s twistor construction of monopoles. The Nahm equations are formally analogous to the… …   Wikipedia Generalized complex structure — In the field of mathematics known as differential geometry, a generalized complex structure is a property of a differential manifold that includes as special cases a complex structure and a symplectic structure. Generalized complex structures… …   Wikipedia Calabi-Yau — Ein Schnitt durch eine Calabi Yau, die Quintik Mit Calabi Yau Mannigfaltigkeit, kurz Calabi Yau, bezeichnet man in der Mathematik spezielle komplexe Mannigfaltigkeiten, die eine Rolle in der algebraischen Geometrie spielen. Die theoretische… …   Deutsch Wikipedia Calabi-Yau-Raum — Ein Schnitt durch eine Calabi Yau, die Quintik Mit Calabi Yau Mannigfaltigkeit, kurz Calabi Yau, bezeichnet man in der Mathematik spezielle komplexe Mannigfaltigkeiten, die eine Rolle in der algebraischen Geometrie spielen. Die theoretische… …   Deutsch Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”