Alexander Borisovich Zamolodchikov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Бори́сович Замоло́дчиков; born September 18, 1952) is a Russian physicist, known for his contributions to conformal field theory, statistical mechanics, string theory and condensed matter physics.

He is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished theoretical physicists^[1] for his profound contributions to fundamental physics and especially to Quantum Field Theories, for which he was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics^[1] in 2024. He is currently the C.N. Yang – Wei Deng Endowed Chair of Physics at Stony Brook University.^[2]

Born in Novo-Ivankovo, now part of Dubna, Zamolodchikov earned a M.Sc. in nuclear engineering (1975) from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a Ph.D. in physics from the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (1978). He joined the research staff of Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics (1978) where he got a Doctor of Sciences degree (1983).

He co-authored the famous BPZ paper "Infinite Conformal Symmetry in Two-Dimensional Quantum Field Theory",^[3] with Alexander Polyakov and Alexander Belavin.^[3][4]

He joined Rutgers University (1990) where he co-founded Rutgers New High Energy Theory Center, and was named Board of Governors Professor (2005).^[5]

In 2016, he became the inaugural holder of the C. N. Yang/Wei Deng Chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University.^[6]

He is the twin brother of the late Alexei Zamolodchikov (1952–2007), also a noted physicist.^[7]

• 1999: Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics with Barry M. McCoy and Tai Tsun Wu for "their groundbreaking and penetrating work on classical statistical mechanics, integrable models and conformal field theories."
• 2003/4: Humboldt Prize
• 2005: Blaise Pascal Chair at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris
• 2011: Lars Onsager Prize, together with Alexander Belavin and Alexander Polyakov, "for the remarkable ideas that they introduced concerning conformal field theory and soluble models of statistical mechanics in two dimensions."
• 2011: Dirac Medal from the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste.
• 2016: elected to the National Academy of Sciences^[8]
• 2024: Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics,^[9] "for profound contributions to statistical physics and quantum field theory, with diverse and far-reaching applications in different branches of physics and mathematics."

• C-theorem
• Conformal bootstrap
• Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov equations
• Thirring model
• W-algebra