Yu. I. Kharitonov (1926 -- 2004)
Senior staff scientist Yuri Illiodorovich Kharitonov was born in
Leningrad, on June 12, 1926 in the family of the office workers.
His youth coincided with the grim years of the World War II in which he
participated as a seaman telegraphist of a torpedo-boat destroyer that
escorted the convoys of allied powers delivering weapons and ammunition
to Murmansk, as well as the marine exempting the Northern Scandinavia
from the German troops. For all this he was rewarded with the order of
the Great Patriotic War and with some military medals. After the war he
entered the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute (now St.Petersburg
Technical University) learning nuclear physics during 1949--1955. His
scientific activity began in 1955 at the Ioffe Physical Technical
Institute as a laboratory assistant in the experimental laboratory of
Prof. L.I.Rusinov. Right away he showed his abilities for mathematics
and was directed to study theoretical problems of nuclear structure.
Here he actively collaborated with Prof. L.A.Sliv, L.K.Peker as
well as with some more young colleagues (V.N.Guman et al.). His
thesis for candidate's degree, which he got in 1965, was devoted to the
problems of nuclear isomerism in odd--odd nuclei. Among the papers
publised by him at that time one should also mention those in which
he calculated the magnitude of the isospin mixing in the ground states
of nuclei. Since 1971 Yu.I.Kharitonov worked at the Nuclear Data Center
of the Leningrad Nuclear Physics Institute (now Petersburg Nuclear
Physics Institute, PNPI), where he headed the group of young scientists
that created the mathematical computer programs for study problems in
nuclear and atomic physics. Just at that time there
started his fruitful scientific collaboration with the group of physicists
from the Moscow State University that was headed by Prof. Yu.F.Smirnov. In
collaboration with them he also explored problems
connected to
the SU(3) and SU(6) symmetries in physics, studied the Interacting
Boson Model, as well as the possible existence of the supersymmetry in
nuclei. Since 1986 Yu.I.Kharitonov worked at the Theoretical
Department of PNPI, where he continued the study of mathematical
problems of physics, in particular those connected to the group theory.
His latest works were devoted to studying of the quantum algebras.
The distinguishing property of his work was the aspiration for the
analytic solution of the physical problems, and one can seldom meet
with the other person who can make it with the more skill. The total
list of works performed by Yu.I.Kharitonov consists of more than 120
publications.
Yu.I.Kharitonov was the kind and friendly man with the delicate sense
of humor, salubrious conservatism and a strong call of duty to his
family. His friends and colleagues will always remember him with the
kind words.
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