Alexander A. Chernitskii
Alexander A. Chernitskii | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Born-Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics as a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions | A. Friedmann Laboratory for Theoretical Physics, St. Petersburg; St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University (LETI) |
Alexander A. Chernitskii is a Russian theoretical physicist known for his work on nonlinear electrodynamics and for proposing that gravitation and electromagnetism can be unified within a single nonlinear field model. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Work
Chernitskii is affiliated with the A. Friedmann Laboratory for Theoretical Physics in St. Petersburg and with St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University. His research centres on Born-Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics, a nonlinear generalization of Maxwell's theory. In a series of papers on arXiv he treats the electromagnetic four-vector potential of the Born-Infeld model as a "unified field," and argues that electromagnetic interactions appear in the first order of approximation while gravitational effects emerge at second order through an effective Riemannian space-time geometry.
He proposes on this basis that gravitation can be understood as a vacuum nonlinear-electrodynamics effect rather than as an independent fundamental interaction. Related work examines soliton solutions ("particle-like" field configurations, including lightlike solitons with spin) within Born-Infeld and extremal space-time film models. These unification proposals lie outside the mainstream frameworks of general relativity and quantum field theory.