Percy Deift

Percy Alec Deift ( born September 10, 1945 in Durban ) is a South Africa -born American mathematician who deals with analysis and mathematical physics.

Deift studied at the University of Natal in Durban (South Africa) Chemical Engineering, with a bachelor's degree in 1967 and a master's degree in 1970. He also acquired a Master's degree in physics in 1971 at Rhodes University in South Africa ( Grahamstown ). Deift his doctorate in 1976 from Princeton University with Barry Simon (Classical scattering theory with a trace condition). He is a professor of mathematics at New York University, where since 1976 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University.

Deift deals with scattering theory (partly with Eugene Trubowitz, and inverse scattering theory ), random matrices, integrable systems, the dynamics and statistical mechanics (such as the Toda lattice ) and numerical linear algebra.

In 1998 he received the George Pólya Prize. In 2009 he held the Gibbs Lecture ( Integrable systems -a modern view). 1999/2000 he was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2006 he was invited speaker ( plenary lecture ) at the International Congress of Mathematicians ( Universality for mathematical and physical systems). Since 2003 he is member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Writings

  • Orthogonal polynomials and random matrices - a Riemann - Hilbert approach, AMS (American Mathematical Society ), 2000 ( and Courant Institute, 1999)
  • With Trubowitz: Inverse scattering on the line, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, Bd.32, 1979, pp. 121-251
  • Richard Beals, C. Tomei: Direct and inverse scattering on the line, AMS, 1988
  • With McLaughlin: Continuum limit of the Toda lattice, AMS, 1998
  • With Li, Tomei: Loop groups, discrete versions of some classical integrable systems, and rank 2 extensions, AMS, 1992
Random matrix Richard Beals (mathematician) Integrated Authority File
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