Abram Alikhanov

Born Feb. 20 (Mar. 4), 1904, in Tbilisi; died Dec. 8, 1970, in Moscow. Soviet physicist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943). Graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1929. Worked in the Physical and Technical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR between 1927 and 1941. Director of the Heat Engineering Laboratory (since 1957, the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) from 1945 to 1968.

In 1934, Alikhanov began research on radioactivity and radioactive radiation. In 1934, with A. I. Alikhan’ian and. M. S. Kozodaev, he discovered and studied the phenomenon of the emission of electron-positron pairs by excited nuclei. In 1935,’with Alikhan’ian, he established the dependence of β-spectra on the atomic number of an element. In 1936, working with Alikhan’ian and L. A. Artsimovich, he experimentally corroborated the law of conservation of momentum in pair annihilation. The research initiated by Alikhanov, Alikhan’ian, and S. Ia. Nikitin led to the discovery in 1939 of a stream of fast protons in cosmic rays. In 1949, Alikhanov and his colleagues put into operation the first nuclear reactor with a heavy-water moderator in the USSR. In 1961, with V. V. Vladimirskii and others, he built the first accelerator in the USSR with strong focusing and an energy of 7GeV (1 GeV = 1 billion eV). Under Alikhanov’s direction, a plan was drawn up and construction begun on an accelerator with a capacity of 70GeV. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941, 1948, and 1953. In 1954 he was designated a Hero of Socialist Labor. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.