Yakir Aharonov (Hebrew: יקיר אהרונוב; born August 28, 1932) is an Israeli physicist specializing in quantum physics. He has been a Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University in California since 2008. He was a distinguished professor in the Perimeter Institute between 2009-2012 and is a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and at University of South Carolina. He is president of the IYAR, The Israeli Institute for Advanced Research.
In June 2024 he was elected to serve in the Royal Society of London.
Yakir Aharonov was born in Haifa. He received his undergraduate education at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, graduating with a BSc in 1956. He continued his graduate studies at the Technion and then moved to Bristol University, UK together with his doctoral advisor David Bohm, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1960. Aharonov later taught at Brandeis University from 1960 to 1961 and the Yeshiva University from 1964 to 1967, both in the United States.
Married to Nily, an educational psychologist, and father of two. His brother, Dov Aharonov, is a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Technion, and his niece, Dorit Aharonov, is a professor at the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
His research interests are nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1959, he and David Bohm proposed the Aharonov–Bohm effect for which he co-received the 1998 Wolf Prize.
In 1988, Aharonov, David Albert, and Lev Vaidman published their theory of weak values. This work was motivated by Aharonov's long-time quest to experimentally verify his theory that apparently random events in quantum mechanics are caused by events in the future (two-state vector formalism). Verifying a present effect of a future cause requires a measurement, which would ordinarily destroy coherence and ruin the experiment. He and his colleagues claim that they were able to use weak measurements and verify the present effect of the future cause. Working with Aharon Casher, they predicted the Aharonov–Casher effect, the electrodynamic dual of the Aharonov–Bohm effect with magnetic dipoles and charges.
1960–1961: Research Associate, Brandeis University
1961–1964: Assistant Professor, Yeshiva University
1964–1967: Associate Professor, Yeshiva University
1967–1973: Joint professorship at Tel Aviv University and Yeshiva University
1973–2006: Joint professorship at Tel Aviv University and the University of South Carolina
2006–2008: Professor at George Mason University
2008–present: Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University
1978: Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
1984: Weizmann Prize in Physics
1984: Rothschild Prize in Physics
1989: Israel Prize in exact science
1990: Elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities