Maxim Kontsevich (also Максим Концевич, born 1964 August 25) is a Russian-French mathematician, a Professor at IHES, a recipient of the 1998 Fields Medal, the 2008 Crafoord Prize, the 2012 Shaw prize and the new prize for fundamental physics 2012.
The Fields Medal 1998 was awarded for solutions of “four problems in geometry” concerning the subjects:
intersection theory on compactified moduli spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces and the Witten conjecture (obtained by relating two 2d string/quantum gravity models),
Kontsevich’s formula for the formal deformation quantization of any Poisson manifold given by the 3-point function of open strings in the Poisson sigma-model
quantum cohomology/mirror symmetry;
Kontsevich’s work for formulating mirror symmetry in string theory by means of A-infinity categories as an equivalence of formalizations of topological string quantum field theory now known as TCFT formulations of the A-model and the B-model:
Cf. T. R. Ramadas, The Work of The Fields Medallists: 1998; 3. Maxim Kontsevich, pdf
Some of the articles of MK can be found at the arXiv and most of others at
Much of Kontsevich’s work has never been fully written and has been known via his public lectures and communications to other mathematicians; most notably, motivic integration was introduced in his lecture in 1996 at Orsay and never published by him, though the subject influenced and is present implicitly again in his newer (written) works. He has solved the Witten conjecture on the connection between the KdV equation and quantum gravity theory (in terms of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces; cf. also Airy function).
Kontsevich has made contributions to various parts of mathematics and mathematical physics which inspired much of his research. One should emphasise his work on the mathematical formulation of conformal field theory (esp. 1988–1992 and again from 2002 in connection with the stochastic Loewner equation with R. Friedrich and Suhov), Gromov-Witten invariants (since collaboration with Yuri Manin in Bonn, early 1990s), knot theory (Vassiliev invariants, quantum groups), -categories, Landau-Ginzburg models in algebraic geometry, the AKSZ model in quantum field theory, introduction of formal noncommutative symplectic geometry along with ideas about a generalization of formal Lie calculus and Koszul duality for dg-operads, discovery of graph complex and graph homology and its role in various problems of geometry and topology including moduli spaces and a geometric explanation of the origin of Rozansky-Witten invariants, fundamental works in noncommutative algebraic geometry, introducing homological mirror symmetry, foundations of deformation theory, work on generalizations of determinant and trace for linear operators (with Vishik), Donaldson-Thomas invariants (with Soibelman), tropical geometry, nonabelian Hodge theory, noncommutative motives, various constructions with supersymmetry (esp. in geometry), derived noncommutative algebraic geometry and so on.
Much of Kontsevich’s research is based on insights into the relation between classical physics and quantum physics and quantizing various constructions even in pure mathematics. His most famous work in this area includes the Kontsevich formality theorem solving the problem of deformation quantization of Poisson manifolds using homological algebra and operads; this created a number of new directions of research in mathematics. Quantization ideas are also present in works related to the geometry of Weyl algebra, including the progress on the Jacobian conjecture. In addition to finished results, Kontsevich introduced a number of stimulating conjectures which strongly influence modern mathematics.
On graph complexes and their quasi-isomorphism to differential forms on (Fulton-MacPherson compactifications of) configuration spaces of points, via assignment of Chern-Simons propagators/Chern-Simons theory-Feynman amplitudes, regarded as differential form on configuration space of points:
Maxim Kontsevich, pages 11-12 of Feynman diagrams and low-dimensional topology, First European Congress of Mathematics, 1992, Paris, vol. II, Progress in Mathematics 120, Birkhäuser (1994), 97–121 (pdf)
Maxim Kontsevich, around Def. 15 and Lemma 3 in Operads and Motives in Deformation Quantization, Lett. Math. Phys. 48, 35-72, 1999 (arXiv:math/9904055)
Specifically on Vassiliev knot invariants:
On homological mirror symmetry
Maxim Kontsevich, Homological algebra of mirror symmetry, Proc. ICM Zürich 1994, alg-geom/9411018
Ludmil Katzarkov, Maxim Kontsevich, Tony Pantev, Hodge theoretic aspects of mirror symmetry, arxiv/0806.0107 Proc. of Symposia in Pure Math. 78 (2008), “From Hodge theory to integrability and TQFT: -geometry”, eds. Ron Y. Donagi and Katrin Wendland, 87–174
On wall crossing phenomena:
Lecture: wall crossing in Aarhus 2010
Introductory Lecture: Calabi-Yau Motives, 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics Symposium
On Wick rotation in quantum field theory in terms of complex metrics:
On stability conditions and Donaldson-Thomas invariants
Last revised on October 15, 2024 at 10:17:40. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.