Warren Siegel
Warren Siegel (/ˈsiːɡəl/ SEE-gəl) is a theoretical physicist specializing in supersymmetric quantum field theory and string theory. He was a professor at the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University. He retired in Fall of 2022.
Background
Siegel did his undergraduate and graduate work at the
Research
His early work involved the use of Superspace to treat supersymmetric theories, including supergravity. Along with
During the 1980s, Siegel invented covariant string field theory and began to pioneer research in string field theory. With Barton Zwiebach he generalized methods outside of string theory to give a universal free field theory action for arbitrary representations of the Poincaré group in arbitrary dimensions. He also introduced new gauge symmetries of classical mechanics useful for strings.[1]
In subsequent work, Siegel made contributions to physicist's understanding of
Textbooks
Siegel authored an extensive (1078pg) textbook called Fields, now in its 4th edition. It is notable in that it follows a very modern approach and incorporates many topics (including string theory) not found in other field theory textbooks. He advocates a "symmetry-based" approach and uses this in his Quantum Field Theory I & II classes. The textbook is also notable in that it is completely an "electronic book" and can be downloaded for free from Siegel's website.